


I Could Live By The Light Of Your Eyes

by nerdwegian



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, BAMF Phil Coulson, Clint gets beat up a lot, Lies, M/M, Pre-Iron Man 1, Secrets, Spies & Secret Agents, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 19:01:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 43,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2479028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdwegian/pseuds/nerdwegian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Clint wanted was to get laid.</p><p>(In which Clint meets a mysterious man who may or may not be named Phil,  and accidentally stumbles into a big conspiracy where very few things are what they seem to be.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [torakowalski](https://archiveofourown.org/users/torakowalski/gifts).



> So this summer, I was like "I'm going to write a 2k porn ficlet for [torakowalski's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/torakowalski) birthday, woo hoo!" But instead what happened was that the little ficlet grew and grew, until I figured I might as well use it for one of my Marvel Bangs. And now here we are. Several months late, but it's finished at last. Happy birthday, Tora! <3 I'm so grateful for our talks about ways to make Clint sadder!
> 
> Thank you so much to [ralkana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ralkana) and [CityofPaperBuildings](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cityofpaperbuildings) for the lightning fast beta! Also thanks to [bliss116](http://bliss116.tumblr.com/) and [pollyrepeat](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pollyrepeat) for looking things over and helping me out at various points in time. I am so grateful to all of you for all your help!
> 
> And last, but definitely not least, thank you SO MUCH to [kimmydoll](http://kimmydolldoodles.tumblr.com/), who for some absurd, crazy reason wanted to collaborate with me when Marvel Bang announced that they'd allow joint author/artist signups this year! You've been an amazing confidante, unspeakably patient when work occasionally swallowed my soul (and my free time), and the art has been out of this WORLD amazing! [Everyone should check out her stunning art!](http://kimmydolldoodles.tumblr.com/post/100410468124/here-is-my-art-to-go-with-the-wonderful-story-by) (Note that the last image is NSFW.)

"Say that again?" Clint asks, his grip on his phone briefly tightening.

"Your scheduled pickup got called to help with an urgent mission in New Mexico," Agent Blake says, sounding very annoyed.

"So send another one," Clint says, frowning.

"It's not my call to make, Agent Barton. It's been determined that SHIELD does not wish to expend the extra resources, and since your mission was only a Priority Five, you'll have to find your own way back to the Cube."

Clint sighs deeply. He should probably be surprised, but he's not. This is actually just his luck. Dejected, he stares at the little flash drive in his hand. "Only" a Priority Five, his ass. He had to go through a lot of trouble to get that drive, thank you. Of course, he knows fuck all about what's on it, but that's none of his business; he was sent to retrieve the intel, not to analyze it.

"At least tell me I'll be reimbursed for travel costs," Clint grumbles.

"We'll see," Agent Blake says. "See you in a day or two, Agent Barton."

He hangs up without another word, and Clint shoves the phone, the flash drive, and both hands into his pockets and scowls at the empty fields around him. At least it's not winter, he thinks. Being stuck out in the boonies, in northern Minnesota, in mid-winter, would have been horrible.

Clint starts weighing his options. Bus and plane both require minimum effort on his part, but it's a bit of a hassle to travel with his bow. Renting a car requires him to be alert and pay attention, and that's annoying; his mind was already getting used to the idea of his mission being over, and he doesn't want to be in work mode any longer than he has to.

Still, in the end, avoiding any potential attention drawn by his bow seems the best option, and Clint sighs again as he makes his choice. Picking up his bow case and slinging it over his shoulder, he starts walking back towards the nearest town. Yeah, renting a car should work. Clint thinks he can probably make it to Chicago, spend the night there, and drive straight on to New York tomorrow.

Shouldn't be a problem at all.

*

It's dark by the time Clint finds a hotel in Chicago. He probably could have stayed at the Super 8 he'd passed an hour ago, but honestly, after the day he's had, Clint wants a proper hotel--with a bar. Checking in is blissfully fast, and he stashes his meager belongings in his hotel room before heading down to the bar. A liquid dinner sounds great right about now, and Clint feels about fifty-seven different muscles relax all at once as soon as he's on a bar stool, a beer in his hand.

There's a mirror behind the bar, and Clint stares morosely at his own reflection. He's got some faint circles under his eyes, a fading bruise from the mission at his left temple, his hair's sticking up, and he's got some decent stubble going. Snorting to himself over his own appearance, Clint drinks deeply from his glass.

It's not the first time Clint's had to make his own way back to base after a mission, but it still sucks. The beer helps; Clint hasn't eaten since he went through a McDonald's drive-thru just past noon, so the alcohol immediately causes a weak, but pleasant buzz. He closes his eyes for a moment, resisting the urge to thump his forehead down onto the bar. He's got about twelve hours of driving left, according to Google Maps. That means he can probably make it in ten. Less, depending on how bored he gets crossing Ohio.

Clint's neck suddenly starts to prickle, the feeling of being watched creeping up on him. Opening his eyes, Clint is about to look around when he suddenly meets steady blue eyes in the mirror behind the bar.

Clint blinks, and then blinks again.

The man staring at him is pretty hot, in a CEO kind of way, but it's the full package that gets Clint. The man's sitting in one of the lounge chairs across the bar, wearing a three-piece suit that looks mouthwateringly good on him. He's got a glass of amber liquid in one hand, a faint half-smile on his face, and his shoulders are squared but relaxed, confidence practically radiating from him. Clint's always been such a sucker for competence, dammit.

Averting his eyes, Clint stares hard at his beer. He's technically still on a mission, he reminds himself. Plus, despite the way he's staring at Clint, the guy's probably not even into dudes. Or if he is, he's probably so closeted that sex wouldn't even be fun. That outfit, plus hotel, equals business trip. Clint's fucked a few guys like that; white collar guys who make more money than they know what to do with, but are still terrified of being seen by anyone, as if the hotel staff are all spies hired by their wives or girlfriends. That's probably what this guy is like, Clint tells himself, trying very hard to stop himself from doing something stupid.

Looking up again, he finds that the guy is still staring at him in the mirror. He nods slightly towards the other chair at his little table, an obvious invitation, and Clint quickly looks away.

 _No_ , he thinks firmly. _Absolutely not._

Then, ignoring his own brain screaming obscenities at his stupidity, Clint grabs his glass, slides off the chair, and walks to the man in the suit, stopping in front of him and smiling.

"Hi."

"Hi," the man in the suit says, and even his voice does things to Clint. He sounds smug. Like he knew Clint was coming over. Clint curses himself again, and he can't help it--he _wants_.

"Care to join me for a drink?" the guy says, gesturing at the empty chair again.

 _No_ , Clint thinks, then nods and sits down. "Just for a little while. I have to get an early start tomorrow."

The man in the suit shrugs a little, as if to say, _Of course_. Like he wasn't expecting anything else.

Clint nods again. Just for a little while.

*

The door slams open with a loud bang when they stumble through it, and Clint pulls his mouth away from the man in the suit long enough to check if anything broke. He has time to spot a dent in the wall from the door handle, but firm hands pull him back into the kiss, and Clint thinks _Fuck it_ , and kicks the door shut so hard the walls rattle.

They stumble towards the bed, and Clint knows this is a distraction, that he should have just gone to bed early--alone--but what the hell. The guy is super hot, Clint's a couple of beers in, and he's feeling happy and loose and pretty good about how the evening's turning out. He deserves to have some fun.

They don't quite make it to the bed, crashing against the wall and pausing there for a moment as their bodies press together. "Well," Clint says when they finally break apart for air.

The guy looks vaguely surprised, like Clint's mere presence in his hotel room is completely unexpected, but his lips still curl upwards in a smug grin.

"So, uh," Clint agrees, and then has to hold back his wince as he realizes he's forgotten the dude's name.

"Phil," the guy says, like a fucking mind reader.

"Phil," Clint says, like that's what he was going to say all along, and hauls Phil in for another kiss, slow and deep and lingering this time.

Clint briefly wonders if _Phil_ is a fake name. It might be. He doesn't care that much. He can take care of himself, and they both know the score here, so he mentally shrugs it off and decides that if this guy wants to be Phil, he can be Phil.

Leaving aside all thoughts of names, fake or not, Clint puts both hands on Phil's hips in order to pull their bodies closer together. One hand trails upwards until he can grip Phil's bicep, and Clint grins into the kiss as he realizes he was totally right in his previous suspicion; Phil's hiding some serious muscle under his fancy-ass three-piece suit.

Clint thinks Phil might be the fanciest lay he's ever had. Like he stepped right out of a futzing magazine. It's the waistcoat that does it, he decides, and then promptly changes his mind back to his original assessment when Phil licks into his mouth: it's the whole package. The clothes, the confidence, the half-smile on Phil's face, the steady and sure way one of his hands curls around the side of Clint's neck while the other slides down to cup the erection straining against the front of Clint's jeans.

Phil's _elegant_ , and it makes something inside of Clint tighten with desire. He wants to rough Phil up a little. Muss his hair, put some bite marks on him, and keep him in bed long enough for him to get soft, lazy bedroom eyes. He wants to tear those high-class clothes off Phil's body, piece by piece, and take him apart.

Sadly, Phil's suit probably cost more than what Clint makes in a whole year, so Clint won't be able to do any tearing, but he still wants to do those other things.

Phil makes a happy little noise, a sort of _Mm_ , when he gets Clint's fly open and a hand inside his jeans, and part of Clint's brain wants to melt as Phil's fingers touch him. When those fingers wrap around his cock, at an awkward angle and cramped by his jeans, but still tight and warm and wonderful, Clint groans out loud, not even bothering trying to hide it.

Phil makes another noise, and Clint wants to hear more, so he breaks their kiss in order to mouth along Phil's jawline, scraping his teeth against Phil's skin along the way. It has the desired effect as Phil makes more noises, and tugs on Clint's cock in response, his other hand fumbling to get Clint's jeans out of the way.

They remain there by the wall, not even two feet from the bed, when Phil gets Clint's dick out and immediately sinks to his knees.

"Oh my g--" Clint starts, but he loses the rest on a sharp inhale as his dick disappears between Phil's lips.

It's not like Clint's never had a blowjob before. He's had blowjobs. He quite likes blowjobs. But he's in a strange person's hotel room, still wearing his clothes--fuck, he's still wearing his leather jacket!--and there's this dude, this super fucking swanky looking dude, who's probably actually a million light years out of Clint's league, on his knees in front of Clint, sucking cock like a pro and humming happily as his head bobs.

He's still wearing his suit.

He didn't even loosen his tie, Clint realizes, he just went for Clint's dick like it held all the answers to the universe, and god fucking dammit, this isn't the way he'd planned to spend the evening, but he has no complaints. The way Phil wants him, the way Phil wants his dick, it's so hot that Clint has to bite his lip not to come on the spot.

"Christ," Clint breathes, both hands landing on Phil's head, not to push, but just to have a place to put them. It's tempting to let his head fall back and let his eyes slide shut, but at the same time he can't take his eyes off Phil.

Phil's looking up at him, cheeks hollowing inwards as he sucks, and he grips the base of Clint's cock with one hand, lips meeting his fingers every time he takes Clint deep, because of fucking course he can deep throat. Where the hell did this guy even come from? Clint feels fairly certain he stumbled into some alternate reality where dapper sex gods just magically appear.

The tingling in Clint's balls is getting out of hand. The notion that he's about to blow his load like an overly excited teenager is surreal, and Clint swallows hard, breathes harder, and says, "Phil, Phil--I--"

Phil doesn't seem to care that Clint's already right on the edge, but he certainly notices. He moans appreciatively around Clint's dick before pulling back just enough to flick his tongue across the head. Before Clint can even attempt to recover from that, Phil runs the thumb of his free hand over Clint's balls, dragging a small smear of saliva down with it, and that slick feeling is all Clint needs.

"Shit," he gets out as he shoots, and then, somehow, feels another wave of pleasure on top of all the crazy awesome orgasmic feelings he's already in the middle of, when he realizes that Phil's swallowing it all, like some high class porn star. Clint's never fucked anyone as hot as this, and _seriously, Jesus fuck, where did this guy come from?_

When the world fades back into focus, Clint's hunched forward. His knees are close to buckling, and his hands are twitching where they're still resting on Phil's head, somehow miraculously still not pulling his hair. Phil's still sucking Clint's dick, but he's slowed down now, just sort of nuzzling into Clint's crotch as Clint goes soft, making these tiny licks across the head. It makes Clint shiver and huff out a laugh.

"Oh man, this was a great idea," he says, straightening up and shivering again as his dick finally leaves Phil's mouth.

Phil gapes a little, working out what's clearly a sore jaw, before standing up on legs that seem a little stiff. His lips are shiny and swollen, and he's breathing heavily, but his suit barely seems rumpled at all, and desire twists heavily in Clint's gut. His dick can't possibly get hard again, but it sure as hell tries with all its might.

"Huh," Phil says, sounding vaguely surprised with himself. "It's been a while since I've done that. I'm out of practice."

Clint's brain temporarily blanks out. "If that's what your blowjobs are like when you're out of practice, what the fuck are they like when you're _in_ practice?"

"Better," Phil says, with an underlying hint of _duh_ in his tone.

"Uh, trust me, plenty good enough," Clint says, gesturing to his spent dick. "Exhibit A."

Phil smirks, unbuttoning his waistcoat with deft fingers. "Good to know."

Clint's brain blanks out a little again, because Phil's finally taking his clothes off, and watching that expensive suit leave his body piece by piece is a little bit like porn. "Oh, you, you pretty much set the bar at an impossibly high level," Clint says. He's aware that his mouth is running away from him a bit. It's the combination of a sexed out post-orgasm brain, and the eye candy of freckled shoulders, muscles and a perfect amount of chest hair being revealed as Phil gets undressed. "I'm not sure what I can do to measure up. I mean, you could fuck me? If you have stuff, obviously, but a blowjob honestly seems quite intimidating at the moment."

"You talk a lot," Phil remarks as he loosens his belt and undoes his fly.

"You don't," Clint shoots back.

Phil pushes his pants and underwear down, and Clint loses the ability to form words at all. Phil's dick is big and hard and mouth-watering, and Clint is painfully aware that he, too, is out of practice--probably more so than Phil, honestly--but he wants his mouth on that dick immediately.

Phil smirks again, like he knows exactly what Clint's thinking, and gets onto the bed, on his back, leaning up on his elbows. His cock is hard against his abdomen, precome smeared at the tip, and Clint licks his lips.

"I enjoy feeling wanted, but I'm starting to feel like our state of undress is imbalanced," Phil says pleasantly, and Clint's entire body jerks with embarrassment as he realizes he's still fully dressed, boots and all, with his dick hanging out of his open fly.

His brain reminds him that he could be naked next to Phil, he could be naked _up against_ Phil, if he stops being a dweeb, and that spurs him into action. He doesn't think he's ever undressed quite this fast in his life, tearing at his clothes and kicking his boots haphazardly across the room. It's not until he's completely naked and about to throw himself onto the bed, dick still trying its best to get hard again, that he pauses.

Phil arches a challenging eyebrow. "Nothing to say?"

Clint blinks and lets his eyes roam over Phil's body again, and finally finds his voice again. "Actions speak louder than words," he says.

Phil's smirk turns into a smile as Clint crawls onto the bed.

*

Clint swims back into awareness slowly, pleasantly, in a way he so rarely does nowadays. It's both occupational hazards and personal preferences that dictate his sleeping habits, and this is an unusual departure from the norm--but one he welcomes.

He's alone in the bed; he can tell. Just as well. It makes things a lot less complicated for him.

Still with his eyes closed, Clint stretches and yawns happily. The familiarity of post-sex soreness is comforting, and Clint allows himself to feel content with life in general for a few, amazing seconds.

Then he opens his eyes and looks straight into the barrel of a gun, and his day takes an immediate nosedive.

At the other end of the gun is Phil, a faint but pleasant smile on his face that is, frankly, terrifying.

"Agent Barton," Phil says. His voice still has the same cadence as it did last night, like nothing can touch him. Clint swallows.

"I'm sure you're aware I've got you at a disadvantage at the moment, so if you'd be so kind as to let me know where the real intel is, I'd be most grateful. Depending on what you tell me and how useful it is to me, I might even let you live, for now. Lie to me, and we'll have nothing more to talk about."

Clint blinks, confused and still waking up and also, _what the actual fuck?_

"I have," he says, enunciating each word in an attempt to convey his honesty, " _no idea_ what you're talking about." He's having serious issues processing what the fuck's happening.

Phil doesn't seem to have any such issues. Making a _that's a shame_ face, he presses the barrel to Clint's forehead.

"Wait!" Clint says quickly, and it comes out a little more desperate than he wants. "Wait! Seriously, dude, I have no fucking clue what you're talking about!"

Phil looks away, seemingly unconcerned with the possibility that Clint could overpower him and take his weapon. Clint does consider trying for about half a second, immediately dismissing the thought. He's at a serious disadvantage, on his back in bed, naked, and still slightly groggy from sleep; Phil could pull the trigger before Clint could even get his arm up to bat the gun away.

"Agent Clinton Francis Barton," Phil rattles off, holding up Clint's badge and SHIELD ID with the hand that's not presently holding a gun to Clint's forehead. "Agent of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, and a Level Five Field Operative." He looks back at Clint, smiling. "Nice badge. Did you know this has a communication receptor hardcoded in behind the metal?"

Clint blinks, brain coming fully online, and with it--anger. "You've got to be fucking kidding me," Clint mumbles, slowly pushing himself up on his elbows, and from there into a sitting position.

The gun stays pressed to Clint's forehead as he moves, and Phil's eyes remain on him the entire time, sharp gaze not missing anything, Clint's sure of it. But he doesn't put a bullet in Clint's brain, so that's a plus.

"Amazing. _Amazing._ I was only looking to get laid," Clint says to himself, eyes closing as he mentally berates himself. So, so very stupid. Of course sharply dressed sex gods like Phil don't just randomly appear out of nowhere. No, Clint's never that lucky. "Fuck. _Me._ "

"Under the circumstances, I don't think that's a good idea," Phil says. His face never changes, really, but there's a twinkle in his eye, like maybe he's super amused by his own joke.

"Oh, yeah, sure, you're hilarious," Clint bites out.

Phil looks at him for a long time, face not betraying a thing. Clint's kind of jealous of his poker face. Finally, Phil pulls out the flash drive with the mission intel, and Clint has to bite the inside of his cheek to hide his reaction. That flash drive was hidden in his room, inside the locked and hidden compartment in his bow case. He wonders how long Phil's been tailing him.

"This," Phil says, "is full of false intel."

Clint stares.

Phil speaks his next words slowly and deliberately, gun muzzle pressing harder into Clint's forehead. "Where is the real intel?"

Clint almost shakes his head on reflex, but catches himself. Sudden movements probably won't do him any good right about now. "Look," he says, "I genuinely don't know what the hell you think you're doing--"

"This flash drive came from a research company in Minnesota," Phil says, as if Clint didn't know that. "It's supposed to contain the names of several of their top programmers," and that's something Clint legitimately _didn't_ know. "The names on this drive are fake."

Clint's mind is racing. Phil seems to know more about the mission than Clint did, which is worrying all by itself, and that's not even getting into all the possible reasons why Phil would want those names in the first place. The knowledge that he's been played sits heavily in Clint's gut, and anger surges through him. He does his best to hide it, because it won't do him any good. Not yet.

"How do you know they're fake?" Clint asks.

"You're wasting my time," Phil says, shifting a little, and Clint's heart rate spikes.

"I swear, I _swear_ , I have no fucking clue about any of this, okay?" Clint says quickly, because of all the ways he's thought his life might end, shot naked in bed by his one-night-stand is not one of them. "I was sent to retrieve the drive, that's all I know. I didn't even fucking know what was on it, all right?"

Phil looks doubtful.

"You saw my badge," Clint continues, gritting his teeth and pushing down on the desperation rising in his chest. "I'm a fucking Level Five, they don't trust me with the big shit, okay? I can't help you, I don't know where to find what you're after, but I can promise you this: If you kill an active duty field agent--who by the way is due back in New York today--you _know_ you'll have the entire organization up your ass."

Phil's lips twitch a little, like he wants to make a joke about things being up his ass. Clint would admire that quality in the man, if he weren't so pissed about the whole gun to the head thing.

"You know I'm right," Clint says instead.

Phil studies him for another long moment before his expression finally changes, relaxing, just a little.

"Huh," Phil says, and Clint briefly has a vivid flashback to the night before, Phil saying _Huh_ and moving his jaw post-blowjob, and to his great embarrassment, the gun still pressed against his forehead does absolutely nothing to prevent him from getting a half chub.

Phil's eyes drift downwards to where the sheet is seriously not covering a whole lot, and he looks back at Clint. "Really?"

Clint scowls, further pissed off. "Oh shut up, like you have any room to judge me for _anything_ , okay?"

Phil's smile widens a touch in amusement, and he backs off, the gun finally easing away from Clint's forehead. Clint slowly brings up a hand to rub the skin there, and he can feel the indentation from the muzzle. Muscles tensing, he prepares himself for a fight, but Phil keeps the gun level and aimed in his direction even as he backs towards the door.

"Sorry about this," Phil says, and actually sounds sorry.

"This isn't over," Clint snarls, because his dapper one-night-stand sex god is a fucking asshole, seriously-- _what the actual fucking fuck?_ There's no way Clint's letting this go.

Except right at the moment, he's naked, Phil's slipping out the hotel door, and as soon as it closes behind him, Clint jumps out of bed to follow him--only to notice that his clothes are all gone.

"Aww, no," Clint complains, standing in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips. Around the same time, he realizes that Phil also took off with his badge, and a vague feeling of dread is creeping up on him: Director Hill is going to fucking murder him.

The fire alarm starts blaring, and Clint sighs heavily.

The bedsheets preserve his modesty as he makes his way outside, but they do very little for his dignity.

*

As he suspected, his own room has been completely cleaned out. It takes Clint almost a full hour to nab some clothes in the chaos after the fire alarm--embarrassingly long, he'd only needed five minutes the time he got stranded naked in Hong Kong (long story; don't ask)--and even then, he doesn't find shoes that fit him.

The loss of his clothes isn't a huge deal, even if it's embarrassing.

The loss of his badge and gun makes him very nervous, because he knows Director Hill will have a fucking cow over it.

The loss of his bow feels like losing a limb.

Padding barefoot to the parking lot, he then has to hotwire his own rental car, and he curses loudly as he realizes there's no way SHIELD will reimburse him now.

At least there's enough cash in the glove compartment to keep the gas tank full, but in the big picture, it doesn't really help Clint's mood any.

Clint makes the rest of the drive back to New York in gloomy silence, spending most of his time on I-80 cursing his bad luck. The rest of the time, he's trying to make sense of what Phil told him. Names of programmers. Programmers for what? The company Clint stole the drive from was into data research, but Clint doesn't know much more than that. It had been a low priority, low security, low risk op, which was why he'd been sent in alone, but taking recent events into account, Clint feels like it's not so low priority anymore.

The fact that Phil had known not only where to find Clint, but also about the details of his mission is increasingly bothering Clint. He keeps trying to think of where and how Phil could have come up with that information, and the only thing he keeps coming back to is SHIELD.

Clint scowls at the road and steps harder on the gas pedal.

(The only thing he carefully doesn't think about at all, as the miles rush by him, is why Phil chose to sleep with him and then left him alive, when he could have simply broken into Clint's room and shot him in his sleep.)

When he finally arrives in the early evening hours, he leaves the rental at the curb of the Cube, their New York office, and stalks barefoot into the building. Some people give him odd looks, but on the whole, SHIELD agents see far weirder shit on a daily basis. The red-faced Level One who's currently serving as Director Hill's secretary, however, visibly holds back laughter when Clint stops in front of his desk.

"Oh, what the fuck ever," Clint says, giving the guy the finger. "Just tell her I'm back."

*

Director Hill doesn't murder Clint, but it's really goddamn close.

"Losing your gun can be grounds for immediate dismissal, Agent Barton!" she thunders, and despite her lean frame, she makes for an impressively intimidating presence, towering over Clint. "Losing your gun, badge, clothes, _and the intel you were sent to retrieve in the first place_ , makes it look like I'm running a kindergarten, and not an intelligence organization!"

Clint slouches further into the visitor's chair in Hill's office. The chair is already a little sunken in the middle, a little tilted back from use, causing whoever's sitting in it to have to look up at Hill even when she's sitting behind her desk. It's even worse when she is where she is right now: standing right in front of Clint and leaning forward, arms crossed over her chest.

"I know," Clint says, trying not to sound sullen. "I'm sorry."

"This is well below what I would expect from a Level Five!" Hill snarls. "You're a fucking disgrace. I don't care how good your aim is, there is _no_ excuse for this!"

"Yes, ma'am," Clint mumbles. "Though--he did say the intel was false?"

"And I'm sure we have all the reasons in the world to believe him," Hill grits out.

The part of Clint that's fully and wholly an agent of SHIELD wakes up a little bit then, overriding the temporary fear and embarrassment he feels over sitting in front of Hill like a schoolboy getting scolded. "Ma'am, given that we have no way of proving or disproving his claim that the intel was false, I respectfully think we should focus our efforts into finding out how he knew I'd be at that hotel, and how he knew what I'd be carrying."

Hill nods, and seems slightly mollified. "Agreed. Did you at least get anything of value? A real name? Anything that can help us identify this guy at all?"

Clint thinks hard, but he's pretty sure _He gives amazing head!_ will actually, seriously, and literally get him killed, so he just shakes his head. "Sorry, ma'am." Then he pauses. "Actually, I guess--his clothes?"

Hill, who had bowed her head and looks like she was busy counting to ten, looks up again. "What about his clothes?"

"They were really fancy?" Clint says. He's not exactly a fashionista, but he knows an expensive suit when he sees one. "He was wearing a three-piece suit." Clint closes his eyes as he tries to remember everything he saw, even as he was focused on the man getting naked in front of him. Tries to remember the feeling of the suit under his fingertips, even as he was busy making out with Phil. "Gray pinstripe. Tailored. No labels in the lining, except a signature one. Couldn't make out the signature. Wool, but it felt--different. Smoother. A blend, probably."

When he opens his eyes again, Hill has straightened up and is looking vaguely impressed, but also kind of cranky about that fact. "Good eyes," she says.

Clint doesn't think now's a good time to bring up his secret desire to switch code names to _Hawkeye_ \--though to be fair, where Hill's concerned, he's not sure it'll ever be a good time--so he just nods tightly. "Thank you, ma'am."

Sighing heavily, Hill walks around her desk and sits down, drumming her fingers on the desktop as she purses her lips thoughtfully.

"Hm. Well. The drive was supposed to go to Agent Sitwell, as part of an ongoing investigation he's been spearheading. Agent Barton, effective immediately, I'm assigning Agent Sitwell to be your full time handler until further notice. Go report to him down on the sixteenth floor, and then get your ass to tech and comms to see if you can find out who this guy is. And while you're at it, stop by Dr. Harris and ask him to swab you for DNA."

Clint's face heats up. "DNA?"

Hill doesn't so much as blink as she says, "From what I understand, your mystery man might've left some DNA behind--somewhere. Get going. Harris first, but then straight to Sitwell."

"Right now?" Clint asks, because while it's not the first time he's pulled an allnighter for SHIELD, he's still in the stolen clothes and barefoot.

Hill merely arches one eyebrow in a perfect _Did I fucking stutter?_ way.

"Yes, ma'am," Clint says, standing up.

"And Agent Barton?" Hill says, making Clint pause halfway to the door. "If this guy turns out to be anything less than a Priority Three threat, you're getting booted down to a Level One, and I will personally make sure they use you as a shining example of how _not_ to conduct yourself as an agent of SHIELD, in every single class across all Academy campuses, you got that?"

Clint swallows heavily. He has no doubt she means it.

"Yes, ma'am."

*

The visit with Dr. Harris is thankfully brief, and he escapes it with minor embarrassment, and a promise that the results won't take longer than a few days at most. Afterwards, Clint takes the elevator to the sixteenth floor to look for his new handler.

Clint has never even heard of Agent Sitwell, but soon enough he finds himself face to face with a bald man in glasses, wearing a Level Six badge and holding the biggest coffee cup Clint's ever seen. Sitwell takes a long sip from his oversized cup, then looks Clint up and down with an expression that says he doesn't see anything even remotely impressive about Clint--and Clint immediately decides he likes the guy.

"I hear you lost my drive," Sitwell says, and Clint clenches his jaw and doesn't say anything. "Let's start with the hotel room and go from there," Sitwell says, walking off with the stride of a man who's confident Clint has no choice but to follow.

He's not wrong.

"So what is the case you're working with this drive?" Clint asks.

"We've been following leads on some 0-8-4s that popped up in Italy a few months ago. Mostly harmless so far, which is why it's got such a low priority rating. Early prototypes to computerized low-grade weapons, and what we suspect to be advanced AIs. The tech is not like anything we've ever seen before, however, and we think the programmers on that drive had been working on it."

Clint sighs. "Which means that whoever took the drive probably wants those names to develop some serious shit on their own."

"Probably," Sitwell agrees. Clint doesn't know what's the worse option: That Phil has the drive, or that some unknown third party has it.

"Do we have a new priority level?"

"Three," Sitwell says. "For now. We'll start with trying to track down your playboy. I've already got people double checking our secure lines to see if we have a leak anywhere. This guy got his info somewhere, and if it was from us, we need to know about it."

"Who knew about the drive?" Clint asks.

Sitwell grunts, like the world in general was created with the sole purpose of annoying him. "Who _didn't_?" he asks. "Take your pick. You, me, most of the NYC based STRIKE Team, half the Level Fours over at the Triskelion, the Communications team, probably a couple of people down in Administration... What was on the drive, however, was originally restricted to Level Sixes and above, so that at least cuts the number of suspects in half."

Clint blanches. That sounds like a whole lot of work. He must make a noise, or maybe Sitwell is psychic, because he glances at Clint and rolls his eyes. "Oh jeez, relax, Hill's got her own people working on finding the leak. Mostly trusted Level Nines and Tens, would be my guess, but like she'd tell us."

"Awesome," Clint says sarcastically. “An internal investigation."

"Like you have anything to be worried about?" Sitwell asks pointedly, and that at least, is comforting to know: that Sitwell doesn't seem to suspect Clint of anything. "Anyway, we're trying to find your mystery man, nothing more, nothing less."

Clint can live with that. "You know, at some point I'll need shoes," he points out.

"At some point," Sitwell agrees, and this time the corner of his mouth twitches in a suppressed smile. He hides it by taking a sip from his cup.

"I like you," Clint announces.

"I'm flattered, but I don't swing that way," Sitwell says flatly. "Besides, who knows what you've picked up in your anonymous hotel trysts."

Clint really likes this guy.

*

Phil's room was registered to Steve Rogers.

"Captain America?" Clint frowns.

"Somehow, I don't think that's who we're looking for," Sitwell agrees. "Payment information?"

The Level Two tech they're currently crowded around brings up a driver's license on her screen.

"This is the owner of the credit card he used," she says.

"Marcus Johnson," Clint says, staring at a photo of a black man with a hard look in his eyes. "Stolen credit card, I'm guessing."

"More likely a case of stolen identity," the tech--Lisa West, according to her ID badge--says, a little apologetically. "Either way, it's highly probable that your guy used it for the first time last night and won't be using it again."

Sitwell snorts as he raises his cup to his lips again. "Your guy."

"Shut up," Clint mutters. "Listen, Lisa, can I call you Lisa?"

"You can call me Agent West," she says, interrupting Clint and making Sitwell sputter into his coffee cup.

Clint rubs the back of his neck and refuses to feel embarrassed. "All right, Agent West, why would you say stolen identity over stolen credit card? And can you look into Marcus Johnson?"

West's lips thin, and she hits another few keys. The next thing that pops up on her screen is a death certificate, along with some military documents. "Killed in action in Iraq, eleven years ago. Hence the stolen identity."

"Dead men don't get credit cards," Sitwell says, draining his cup.

Clint hadn't thought it'd be that easy, but it's still disappointing. "Yeah. Makes sense, I suppose. Thanks."

"Sorry, Agent Barton," West says.

"All right," Sitwell says, nodding at West. "Check for traffic cameras, security cameras, any sort of surveillance, in a ten-block radius of the hotel, and make it a one hour block around the time reported by Agent Barton. Anything you find, send it to Agent Barton's desk for him to go through."

"Oh," Clint says faintly. "Sounds fun."

West snickers, but nods. "On it, sir."

"You and me, we're going suit hunting," Sitwell says, walking away and snapping his fingers at Clint as if he's a dog ordered to heel.

Clint sneers at him as he follows, saying, "Yes, sir, woof, sir," and this time Sitwell doesn't bother trying to hide his grin.

*

They start with trying to identify the wool blend ("cashmere or silk, probably," says Sitwell, and Clint nods like that means something to him), cross matching it to the priciest private tailors across the continental US. Clint just hopes it was at least made in-country, because if they have to move on to international tailors, it'll be worse than a needle in a haystack. They might as well give up now.

It's slow and annoying work, not in the least because Clint really doesn't know a whole lot about fancy suits, and it's made all that much more tedious by the fact that Sitwell seems to have an endless amount of energy for this shit. By the time Clint's eyelids are starting to get heavy, Sitwell is still sipping his re-filled massive cup, looking both alert and relaxed at once.

Clint perks up a little when Sitwell's phone rings and he answers it with a bland, "Mhm."

Sitwell doesn't say anything else, listening for a few seconds before hanging up. "Agent Barton, there should be a drive with about seventeen hours of security footage in total, waiting for you at your desk. Come find me when you've gone through it all. You're dismissed."

It's a testament to how mind-numbingly bored Clint is with suits that he immediately jumps to his feet, bouncing a little. The idea of getting out of here, not having to sit and read about fancy clothes and wool blends and different cuts of suits, makes him want to jump with joy.

"See you later, sir! Enjoy the suits, hope you won't be _tied up_ for too long," he says, throwing a mock salute in Sitwell's direction, before immediately heading for the door.

Sitwell doesn't answer him, but Clint feels fairly confident there is some serious eye rolling going on.

*

Clint's not sure what woke him, but he jerks awake on his own couch in the early morning hours, dawn barely creeping past the horizon. His SHIELD issue laptop is dark on his coffee table, the video he was going through when he finally succumbed to sleep apparently having run its course.

Rubbing a hand over his face, Clint stretches and yawns, dragging himself into a sitting position. Coffee. He needs coffee. He's so tired he can practically smell the coffee brewing already, and the thought of caffeine drives him up off the couch.

Stumbling to the kitchen, Clint fumbles for the light switch, manages to flip it on, and then promptly freezes.

"Morning," Phil says, pouring coffee into Clint's favorite mug and sliding it across the counter towards him.

It takes Clint less than a second to realize that Phil doesn't have a gun in his hand. Clint's compound bow and his quiver have been sitting in a corner by the kitchen door for the better part of two weeks (he _means_ to put it away in its case soon, honestly), and Clint dives for them, getting an arrow nocked and drawn, and whirling to face Phil again in one smooth motion.

Phil just stands there in another one of his fancy suits (dark blue pinstripe, tailored, waistcoat--Clint's eyes scan for any other identifiers but can't find any) and looks supremely unconcerned with suddenly having one of Clint's broadheads aimed at his chest. Clint scowls. Phil's nonchalance rankles, because Clint sure as hell didn't appreciate having Phil's gun to his forehead; he was at least hoping to ruffle Phil a little.

But Phil merely raises an eyebrow at him and gestures to the cup on the counter. "Drink it while it's hot."

"How the fuck did you get in here?" Clint snarls.

"The door," Phil gestures, like he simply walked in. Like Clint doesn't have seven different locks and alarm mechanisms in place, one of which is directly linked to SHIELD.

"Oh, sure, okay, then I suggest you leave the same way."

Phil smiles a little. "I thought you wanted to take me in? Or are you trying to find me for some other reason?"

Clint doesn't much care right this very second, because Phil is in his apartment, uninvited, and it makes his skin crawl. This is _his_ space, and the fact that Phil not only got in, but got in while Clint was sleeping _right there_ in the living room, suggests that whoever Phil is? He's dangerous.

"What do you want?" he asks, mentally running through the possibilities of who Phil really is. Hitman, mobster, gun runner, drug runner, fuck--human trafficking?

Phil puts the coffee pot back in its place, and leans on the counter, folding his hands casually in front of him. "I came to ask you to stop looking for me."

Clint stares. Then, a bark of laughter escapes him. "Yeah. Sure. That's gonna happen."

"I think it would be in your best interests to walk away from this one," Phil says. He still has that pleasant half-smile on his face, but there's something in his tone that's--not a threat, exactly, but darker, somehow.

"Well, now I gotta know," Clint says cheekily, before advancing carefully on Phil. "What if I just shoot you right now?"

"With that?" Phil asks, nodding at the bow, clearly unimpressed.

"With this," Clint confirms.

Phil looks at Clint like it's a challenge, and then--lightning fast, faster than Clint has ever seen--he draws a gun, and Clint doesn't think, doesn't consider anything at all, he just aims and lets the arrow fly.

Clint's only a few feet away, but it's enough. The arrow hits the barrel of the gun, but the broadhead is too big to fit down the narrow opening, instead knocking the gun clean out of Phil's hand. The look on Phil's face as his weapon goes flying is pretty priceless, and Clint feels unbearably smug about the fact that he finally got that poker face to slip, but then he's got another arrow nocked and drawn and aimed at Phil's throat.

"Like I said," Clint says. His heart is thundering in his chest, but he's trying not to show it. Phil, for his part, has smoothed away his shocked expression and is now looking at Clint with a new light in his eyes, smile back and slightly bigger than before.

"That's impressive," Phil says, glancing at where his gun has landed, near the fridge. "I'm guessing the bow I took from your room isn't for recreation, then?"

"Who the fuck _are_ you?" Clint asks, scowling, instead of answering Phil.

Phil shrugs. "I'm Phil."

"The hell you are."

Phil frowns a little, seemingly offended. "Am too."

"Are you six?"

"I'm serious," Phil says, smile fading. "Please trust me; you don't want to follow this particular yellow brick road."

Clint laughs again. "Trust you? That's rich."

"Why wouldn't you trust me?" Phil asks.

Clint's jaw almost drops. "Why wouldn't--are you serious right now?" When Phil just looks at him expectantly, Clint goes on. "How about you lied to me? How about you stole intel from SHIELD, and yes, I know, you say it was false, but it was still our intel? How about--"

"I never lied to you," Phil interrupts, frown deepening.

"Sure," Clint says, resisting the urge to roll his eyes only because it would mean a distraction from his target.

"Really. You never asked me any very personal questions, you never asked about what I did for a living... You mostly gave me bedroom eyes and made innuendo."

Clint thinks about it, thinks about sitting in that hotel bar two days prior, and the _need_ that had been curling in his gut that night. He wants to make a face as he realizes Phil's right; Clint hadn't exactly wanted to get to know Phil. He'd mostly just wanted to get him naked.

"At least I succeeded there," Clint mutters out loud without thinking about it.

Phil smiles and goes on, "Everything I said to you was true."

Clint replays the night in his head and remembers Phil not saying much more at the bar than things like _Oh, really_ or _Is that right?_ And later, he was saying shit like _That feels good_ and _Yes, there_.

Clint's dick is a super traitor, because it immediately hardens at the memories, and Clint resolutely doesn't let his gaze stray or soften, even when Phil's eyes drift down to Clint's crotch for a moment. Clint's very aware that the sweats he's wearing don't conceal much, but whatever. It's not like it's the first time he's gotten a completely inappropriate boner where Phil and deadly weapons are involved--and isn't _that_ a disturbing thought.

Phil tilts his head and his smile turns a little soft around the edges. "Are you gonna shoot me?"

 _Yes_ , is on the tip of Clint's tongue, but he can't voice it, and his fingers don't loosen their grip on his arrow.

"SHIELD probably wants you alive," Clint reasons.

"Alive, yes, probably," Phil agrees. "Unharmed? Didn't think you had a policy on that."

"How would you know?" Clint asks.

"You can let the arrow go, or you can put the bow down," Phil says instead of answering Clint. "But either way, I'm walking out of here. I really wish you would listen to me and not follow me. Forget you ever saw me."

"Oh, no, it's personal now," Clint sneers.

"Are you saying it wasn't personal when we had sex in my hotel room?" Phil asks, and he slowly starts inching towards the door--towards _Clint_.

"Doesn't count if you fucking--if you only _seduced_ me to get the drive," Clint sputters, momentarily embarrassed at himself.

"Did I, though?" Phil asks, smiling. "I'm not sure if you're aware, but you're easy on the eyes, and if things were different..." Phil briefly trails off and shakes his head a little, as if clearing it. "Anyway, In an ideal world, the intel on the drive would be real, you'd wake up in the morning after a satisfying one-night-stand, and that would be the end of it."

"How did you even know the intel was false?" Clint asks.

Phil shrugs. "It wasn't encrypted."

Clint must give him some kind of incredulous look, because Phil shrugs a little. "The kind of data we're looking for, the names we're looking for, would be encrypted. Whoever replaced your drive with a fake was in a hurry. That's why I thought you were the one who hid the real thing," he explains. "The point is, believe me when I say that sleeping with you was a decision separate from my main objective for the evening."

"Stop right the fuck there," Clint warns, ignoring Phil's last comment, mostly for his own sanity. The idea that Phil had wanted it, that Phil had wanted _Clint_ , for real? That's...

"You're not shooting me," Phil points out, still moving closer and unmistakably smug about it.

"I mean it, don't come any fucking closer!" Clint says, and has to fight the instinct to take several steps back, put more distance between them.

Phil doesn't say anything else, just continues stepping closer and closer, until the point of the arrowhead is right at his chest. The tip barely catches on his tie, but Phil seems completely unconcerned. Slowly, he raises a hand and pushes the arrow down, which strikes Clint as a particularly dumb or gutsy move, depending on how you look at it, as the arrowhead passes over his crotch area, and--holy shit, Clint's basically letting Phil strip him of his weapon here!

Eyes snapping up to meet Phil's, Clint realizes that he's breathing heavily, heart practically in his throat with the tension in the air. It's an annoying contrast to Phil, who smiles serenely at him as he finally pushes the arrow completely out of the way, Clint's aim now off to the side, and steps into Clint's personal space.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Clint asks hoarsely, confused, and his voice almost falters at the end of the sentence.

"Do you want me to stop?" Phil asks. Clint's arm is crowded between them at an awkward angle, and he slowly relaxes the drawn bow. Phil takes the last step towards his body, so close now that Clint can feel each breath on his face, calm and even. The bow and arrow clatter to the floor, and Clint hates himself, just a little.

"No," he admits.

Phil's smirk seems triumphant, but honestly, Clint doesn't really have time to notice because Phil's kissing him, and Clint's eyes slide shut.

Clint should put a stop to this. He knows he should. Phil's lips are insistent, coaxing his mouth open, tongue slipping in... What Clint _wants_ is to stay here and kiss Phil for a while.

But Clint really should put a stop to this.

He keeps telling himself he will. In a few seconds, he will. He just wants a little bit more of Phil's scorching kisses, of the way his hands slide across Clint's body, of the confidence he seems to radiate.

The kisses grow deep and hot, and Phil starts walking them out of the kitchen. Towards the bedroom, Clint realizes, suddenly feeling a little creeped out that Phil seems to know his way so easily. How long was he creeping around Clint's apartment before Clint woke up? What has he seen?

But then Phil moans a little into Clint's mouth, a sound that goes straight to his groin, and Clint feels like he's hanging onto his sanity by a thread. No sex on Earth is worth the complications that fucking Phil again will lead to. Not even sex as spectacularly good as sex with Phil.

It takes a significant amount of willpower to stop them halfway through the living room, breaking the kiss.

"Wait," Clint says, out of breath and regretful and feeling too many things to sort through them all, and Jesus, _why the fuck do these things happen to him?_

"I can't," Clint tries, and doesn't know how to finish that sentence, because he just can't. He can't do any of this.

Phil looks at Clint and presses real close, closer than they already were. "You want this, right?"

 _Yes_ , Clint thinks, and--oh, he's in such massively deep shit. He says nothing, but the way Phil's looking at him, Phil probably knows anyway. It's not like Clint's hard on, currently nestled perfectly in the dip of Phil's hip, is any help.

Phil puts his arms around Clint and kisses him again, slowly, his hands big and warm on Clint's back, and Clint's entire chest aches. Dimly, he thinks that two people shouldn't be able to just _click_ like this, it should not be physically possible to be this attracted to another human being. Yet he gravitates towards Phil, and he can't seem to help it. He wants Phil. He wants everything. He wants the elegant suits and Phil's hard cock and his half-smile and his steady hands.

Phil breaks the kiss this time, moving until his lips are right up by Clint's ear before saying, in a deceptively casual tone, "I really want you to come on me this time."

It absolutely shatters what little resolve Clint had left. He _whimpers_ when he catches Phil's mouth again, and immediately vows to forget he could ever make a sound like that, forget that he could ever be that needy.

Phil smiles into the kiss; Clint can feel it.

"Shut up," Clint warns, muffled against Phil's lips. "Just--don't say anything, okay? Not a word, just be quiet, be quiet..."

Phil nods, tongue licking across Clint's bottom lip before he pulls back again. Still not saying a word, which Clint is grateful for, he takes Clint's hands and pulls him towards the bedroom.

*

Having sex with Phil again easily ranks as The Number One Dumbest Thing Clint's ever done--and there's been a lot of contenders for that spot. Still, with Phil looking so calm and confident and in control, with that horribly attractive half-smile on his face as he leans down to nose alongside Clint's hard cock, Clint pushes every thought of Maria Hill, of SHIELD, of Jasper Sitwell, to the back of his mind. He tries to think about nothing but the feeling of Phil's breath on his overheated skin, and he's mostly succeeding.

"I like you like this," Phil says quietly, pleased, and it sounds a little bit like a confession he hadn't planned on making.

Clint can't say anything in return; he doesn't have enough air in his lungs to form words. He waits for Phil to put his lips on him, but Phil shifts upwards instead and aligns their cocks together, grinding into Clint's body and dragging a groan from Clint's throat.

"Yes," Phil says, like he's answering a question Clint never asked. Clint can't think straight, hips shifting upwards on autopilot, seeking friction. When Phil bends his head again and puts his lips against Clint's neck, not licking or sucking but just hovering, warm puffs of air against his pulse point, Clint gives up on trying to make sense of his thoughts. Instead he tries to steady his trembling hands by gripping the headboard, and hangs on for the ride as Phil starts to move against him.

*

The next time Clint wakes up, it's much later in the morning, in his own bed. He's butt naked, there's dried come flaking off his lower abdomen, and his phone is buzzing non-stop on his bedside table.

"Fuck," Clint mutters. His head feels full of cotton. Fumbling for the phone, he answers it without looking at the display, hoping whoever is on the other end of the line will silence the voice in his head, screaming at him that he's a complete and utter idiot.

"Where the hell are you?" Sitwell asks.

"What time is it?" Clint asks, pulling the phone away from his ear briefly to check the display.

"Late," Sitwell says, and he sounds cranky. "We've got a ton of shit to go through still, and I have other cases to deal with. Get down here and get your ass in gear. Did you look through any tapes?"

Clint sits up, swings his legs over the edge of the bed, and runs a hand over his face, working on waking up. "Yeah," he says, clearing his throat. "Yeah, I did." Then he remembers something. "Actually, I, uh--I remembered a thing. I did see a label after all, in the guy's suit."

He'd seen the label earlier that morning, specifically looking for it as he peeled Phil out of his clothes, but--details, right?

"It was, uh, a big C?"

There's a brief pause on the other end of the line before Sitwell breathes once into the phone, harsh and quick. "Are you serious? That makes our search so much fucking easier, Barton, you've cut probably days of research!"

Clint winces and mentally braces himself. He expects an earful for not remembering this information earlier, but instead of getting scolded, he gets Sitwell chuckling in disbelief in his ear. "Good job, Barton."

Clint blinks. "You're not angry I didn't remember before?" he asks before he can think to stop himself.

"Just get the fuck down here," Sitwell says, but his tone is lighter than the words. He hangs up without waiting for Clint to answer.

Clint sits and stares at his phone for longer than he means to, brain blank and body feeling numb. When he finally gets up, there's a slight twinge in his ass, and his entire body heats in part shame, part horniness, as he remembers Phil's fingers, pushing, thrusting, stretching--

Clint physically jolts himself out of the memory, and looks down at himself. His cock is half hard again--Jesus fuck, what is _with_ him?--and there is crusted come on his shin, stuck to the hair on his leg, from where Phil had jerked himself off after making Clint come on his fingers.

Squeezing his eyes tightly shut, Clint shoves at the memories, works on packing them away in a little box. That was a different Clint, he decides. _This_ Clint, the Clint he is now, today, is going to go to SHIELD and do his goddamn job, and not fall all over himself for someone who quite possibly is a terrible human being.

Phil's eyes and smile flash behind Clint's closed eyelids, and he wants to slam his head into the wall.

He's so screwed.

*

When he walks into Sitwell's office, Sitwell's on the phone, head tilted to hold it in place between his cheek and his shoulder. When he sees Clint, he picks up something from his desk and tosses it to Clint without halting his one-sided conversation. "Mhm. Yes. Yes. Correct."

Catching the object, Clint looks and can't help but smile a little when he sees that it's a new badge. He silently vows to _definitely_ not let this one get stolen too as he sits down to wait for Sitwell to finish his conversation. His ass has no sooner hit the chair, however, before Sitwell stands up, and Clint follows suit. Sitwell grabs a piece of paper from his desk and waves it at Clint. "Uh huh," he says into the phone. "Yes, ma'am. Yes. On it."

He hangs up as he hands the paper to Clint, grabs a folder and his oversized coffee mug, and leads Clint right back out of the office. "The C probably stands for Cutter, Ken Cutter, an exclusive tailor based out of New York--lucky us--who has been linked to various shady individuals. A few years back, the FBI brought in this guy." Sitwell flips open the folder to show Clint a mug shot: nasty grin, dark hair, a crazy look in his eyes that Clint has seen on far too many persons of interest. He gets a glimpse of a name--Ben-something--before Sitwell flips the folder shut again. "Assassin. Based on intel, it's likely that other shady individuals in Cutter's clientele are in similar professions."

Clint mulls it over, trying to picture Phil with a gun or a rifle in his hands, poker face and half-smile in place as he calmly ends someone's life. It's not as hard to imagine as he wishes.

"Makes sense," he reluctantly admits. "So what's our next step?"

"We go shake down Cutter. Get a list of his clients. See what pops up."

"If it helps any, I think he was telling the truth when he said his name was Phil," Clint offers.

Sitwell looks at Clint with one raised eyebrow and an expression on his face that Clint's scared to examine too closely. "What makes you say that?"

Guilt churns in Clint's gut, but he forces himself to maintain eye contact with Sitwell, shrugging as casually as he can. Looking away would be suspicious. "I don't know. Gut feeling, I guess."

"Your gut feeling led you into bed with someone who's likely on at _least_ one Most Wanted list, somewhere in the world," Sitwell says, smirking. "Not sure I trust your gut feeling all that much."

He's teasing, Clint realizes before the guilt can completely consume him, and he rubs his neck. "Shut the fuck up."

"You got a mouth on you," Sitwell remarks, tone light.

"That's what Phil said," Clint shoots back, and enjoys the way Sitwell's steps falter just a little bit. For a few, glorious seconds, Clint forgets all about Phil and the mess he's in. It doesn't last long, of course, but it's nice while it does.

*

Clint tilts his head, looking at the storefront across the street. Next to him, Sitwell sips coffee from a styrofoam cup. Clint wonders how much coffee Sitwell drinks in a day.

"Ever feel like we went into the wrong business?" Sitwell asks.

Clint frowns. "I feel like I'm gonna spontaneously combust if I go in there."

"Scared?" Sitwell challenges. "We're just here to ask some questions."

Clint knows how SHIELD asks questions. "Not scared," he clarifies. "But that place is for fancy people. I'm not fancy. You go."

Sitwell drains his cup and throws it with amazing accuracy into a trash can a ways behind them. "Only because you implied I'm fancy," he says, batting his eyelashes behind his glasses before pulling out a photo from his inner pocket to show Clint. "This is our target. We're going on a fox hunt."

"Gotcha," Clint says, throwing a half-assed salute before heading down the block to get around the building. It takes him a couple of minutes to find a way to the back of the building, and then another minute to find the back entrance to Cutter's shop. Once he's sure he's got the right one, Clint measures five long steps from the door to the exit of the alleyway, and leans on the wall, waiting.

Seven minutes go by, eight, and Clint's starting to wonder if he should have gone with Sitwell after all, when there's a vague commotion. A second later, the back door bursts open, and a string bean of a man--Cutter, Clint recognizes from the photo Sitwell showed him on the way--comes barreling through it. His gray hair is wild and his glasses are askew, and he does not see Clint at all until Clint casually throws out a leg, tripping him in his rush to escape.

Cutter practically flies through the air, crashing hard to the ground, chin first. Clint winces in sympathy as Cutter skids a little before coming to a stop, moaning in pain. Hauling the man to his feet, Clint gives him a saccharine sweet smile. "Ken Cutter? I'm Agent Barton, with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. I believe you've already met Agent Sitwell?"

As if on cue, Sitwell steps into the alley, and Clint wonders if he was hanging out inside the doorway, waiting for Clint to say his name.

"Mr. Cutter. I asked you not to run, please," Sitwell admonishes. He's wiping his hands on a handkerchief, and Clint wonders if that's Sitwell's, or if he took it from somewhere inside the store.

Cutter doesn't answer at first, but he's breathing heavily and looks more than a little scared. Clint uses his hand to brush off the front of Cutter's suit, as if that could undo the damage that was done when he faceplanted on the ground. When it doesn't really help, Clint instead carefully straightens Cutter's glasses on his face, instead.

"I don't know anything about anything," Cutter says, wide eyes going from Clint to Sitwell and back.

"Of course you don't," Sitwell says pleasantly. "Let's talk."

Clint hauls Cutter back inside his store, trying very hard not to smirk at Sitwell's casual demeanor.

Cutter's store gives Clint hives. There's a lot of dark, polished wood, rows and displays of fabric, suits and accessories (does anyone wear top hats anymore? Clint doesn't think so, but how the hell would he know, anyway), and there's mirrors everywhere. It's creepy.

Clint leads Cutter where Sitwell points, into an office in the back, and forces Cutter's ass down in a very comfortable looking leather chair.

Sitwell takes a moment to hand the handkerchief to Cutter, who uses it to gently dab at his bloody chin. Clint notices that Sitwell doesn't make any attempt to get it back and decides it must be Cutter's own.

"Mr. Cutter," Sitwell says, glancing through the door towards the rest of the store. "Nice suits."

Cutter looks like he might pee himself, but he still finds enough courage to say, "You want one? This isn't the appropriate way to place an order..."

Clint suppresses a smile as Sitwell narrows his eyes at Cutter.

"We're looking for one of your suits. Actually, we're looking for someone _wearing_ one of your suits. I guess that makes him a client, huh?"

Cutter sputters a little. "I wouldn't know, I'm--is this even legal?"

"I think you _do_ know," Sitwell says pleasantly, sitting on the edge of the desk and pointedly ignoring Cutter's question. "You don't strike me as the off-the-rack type. I think each and every one of your suits is tailored specifically to your customers, and I think you have a lot of men of a certain reputation in your clientele."

"I, I don't--"

Sitwell silences him with a look, before glancing back into the store. "I see a lot of grays and blues."

"It's in style," Cutter says, before snapping his jaw shut, clearly realizing he's giving away more than he intended.

"What about pinstripes?" Sitwell asks. "Are those in style, too?"

Cutter looks vaguely offended at the question, but doesn't actually say anything. Still, his expression speaks volumes, and Sitwell exchanges a quick look with Clint.

"Mr. Cutter, we're going to need a list of your regular clients," Sitwell says, standing up and straightening his suit.

"That is confidential information," Cutter says, frowning. "I don't have to tell you anything. I have rights. You need a warrant or something, right?"

Sitwell chuckles, and Clint does the same, because he knows it'll unnerve Cutter.

"I'll start in here," Clint says, walking around Cutter's chair in order to start opening desk drawers.

"Excuse me!" Cutter exclaims, surging to his feet as if he wants to physically restrain Clint to prevent him from going through his things.

Without missing a beat, Sitwell draws his gun. "Please don't."

Cutter looks like he might pee himself again. "You, you can't--can you do this?"

Sitwell smiles. "Why not?"

*

They don't find much.

Cutter doesn't have a client list, and the piddly amount of paperwork they find in his safe doesn't tell them much, either. They end up walking out with credit card receipts and logs, invoice copies, and Cutter's design notebooks--but until they can sort through those, they're no closer to finding out who Phil really is.

By the time they leave Cutter's and go back to the Cube, Clint's feeling vaguely dejected--but also feeling something like relief in his chest. He's trying not to examine that feeling too closely.


	2. Chapter 2

It's nearly midnight by the time Clint heads out again, walking towards the subway. His head feels heavy with all the new information, and now, without work to focus on, the emotions and events of the last few days are catching up to him. It's enough to make his chest tighten, because what's going to happen if they _do_ find and catch Phil? Sooner or later, everything's gonna blow up in Clint's face, he knows this, but he can't seem to do anything about it.

What he should do is march into Hill's office and tell her about Phil's visit to his apartment--but he knows that will cost him his job, and Clint kind of likes his job. He's good at his job. (Phil's an exception. A sharply dressed exception who's unbelievably good at sex, damn him, but still an exception.) Clint knew that when he signed onto SHIELD, it was for life, and Clint was good with that. Is still good with that. Clint's life before SHIELD was--well, it's not worth thinking about, for the most part.

Clint knows who he was without SHIELD, and he doesn't want to go back to that.

By the time Clint gets home and unlocks his front door, he's officially so deep in his own self-loathing and guilt that his fingers practically twitch around his keys. The desire to call Hill and come clean is warring with the instincts he's had since he was a little boy, cultivated through his harsh upbringing, telling him he'll be in so much shit, so keep your fucking mouth shut, Clint.

Entering the code for the seventh and final lock on his door, Clint sighs heavily as he enters his apartment, happy to be home. He wonders if he could stop going into work altogether for a while, and just lay low until this whole case has gone away. All he wants is a shower and approximately fifty hours of sleep. Not necessarily in that order.

Clint doesn't realize he sees something out of the ordinary at first; he just reacts on instinct, and ducks. He can _feel_ the air shift as a heavy object passes through the air above him.

It takes him a fraction of a second to process the information: Intruder in his apartment.

The heavy object--a bat?--comes rushing towards him again, and Clint ducks once more, this time to the side, diving into a roll that brings him almost to the door to the kitchen.

When he comes out of it, there's a man advancing on him, wearing a ski mask and carrying a wicked looking nightstick. Clint blocks the next hit while still in a half crouch, then plants his hands on the floor so he can kick out with both feet.

He catches his assailant in the stomach, but the guy merely grunts before coming at him again. Clint blocks, gets to his feet, blocks again, and suppresses a groan as his bones creak under the blows of the nightstick. Managing a solid jab with his elbow, Clint sends the guy stumbling back a little, knees hitting the coffee table and pushing it towards the couch, before he follows it up with two quick left hooks, and then sweeps his attacker's feet out from underneath him. The guy goes down with a loud grunt, landing on Clint's coffee table, which immediately collapses. Clint winces, but the guy doesn't seem fazed at all. He immediately bounces back up, wood splintering further underfoot.

Clint's mind is racing. Somehow got past all his locks. Masked. Wants to hide his identity. Nightstick, not a gun or any of the other millions of ways he could have made Clint dead before he knew what hit him. So he needs Clint alive for something. Clint suspects it's not a pleasant something, and decides it's in his best interests not to go quietly. Or at all. That's a better option. Clint's not going at all.

When the guy lunges again, Clint ducks into the kitchen. Taking advantage of the broken sightline, Clint waits until the guy follows him in, tackling him to the ground as soon as he appears in the doorway. Clint uses the momentum to flip the guy over, knocking him into the small kitchen table and settling on top of him. Clint punches him once, twice, before the guy swings the nightstick again, clipping Clint in the head, and it's enough to make him see stars. Warm, sticky blood runs down the side of his face, but he clings to consciousness.

The masked man grabs the opportunity to shove Clint off him and kick at Clint's chest. Clint scoots back, dodging at the last second before throwing himself at the nightstick. They stagger to their feet together, groaning as they struggle for control of the weapon, but Clint's head is still swimming a little, and his hands are slippery with his own blood. When the guy wrenches the nightstick away, Clint turns and in one fluid motion grabs the nearest chair, heaves it around, and catches the guy in the head right as he's about to swing the nightstick again.

The guy spins and staggers backwards, but Clint's got the upper hand now, and he's not letting that go. Without pausing, Clint swings the chair a second time, and hits the guy in the head again. This time, he loses his footing, head hitting the kitchen counter on the way down with a sickening crack. He collapses in a heap on the floor and is still, and Clint keeps the chair ready for another attack for one heartbeat, two, three, before finally letting it go and sitting down on his ass, panting.

"What. The fuck."

He sits there, confused and angry, just catching his breath for a few moments, before leaning forward to pull off the guy's ski mask.

It's not a face he recognizes at all, and Clint fumbles in his pocket for his cell phone, figuring now's as good a time as any to call for backup.

Just as the screen comes to life, the guy on the floor swings his leg up, and Clint can _feel_ the blood spray from his nose as he takes a facefull of heavy boot. His eyes squeeze shut on reflex, and he forces them open again, ready to go another round, but the guy's back on the ground, and--

Clint stops.

The guy is motionless on his back, eyes wide and unseeing up at the ceiling. His chest makes a long, rattling, gurgling sort of sound, and he goes still.

Clint breathes, wipes blood from his face, and doesn't understand anything anymore. What the fuck is happening?

*

"Well, Barton, this is a fine mess," Director Hill says, watching as the body bag holding Ski Mask Guy is taken away.

Clint's sitting on his couch, feet idly kicking at the woodpile that used to be his coffee table. He's got an ice pack pressed to one side of his head while a fussy SHIELD medic makes him stop leaking blood on the other side. "All due respect, Director Hill, wasn't my mess." His words are slightly and comically distorted from the wads of cotton he's got jammed up his nose, but Hill doesn't so much as smirk.

"Didn't say it was," Hill says, hooking her thumbs into one of the harnesses running across her waist. "But looks like you're onto _something_ with this case."

"Did the alarms even go off?" Clint wonders, thinking about lock number four, which has a direct alarm line to SHIELD.

"Not one peep," Hill says, shaking her head. "Signal's still there, line is still solid, but no tampering was detected at any point."

"Guess this Phil guy really doesn't want to be found, huh?" Clint says, adding, as casually as he can, "I must be close to something concrete if he's trying to kill me."

Clint doesn't believe for a second that Phil is behind the attack tonight, and he definitely doesn't believe that someone tried to kill him. A nightstick, while painful as shit, is not generally an effective murder weapon. Still, Clint can't help but feel like he needs more time, needs more information, before tipping his hand here. It goes against everything he was taught at the Academy, every rule Director Hill has drilled into him over the years, but Clint powers through and doesn't say anything about his suspicions.

Hill looks at Clint for a long time, eyes narrowing slightly.

Clint looks down and hopes his various aches and bruises and the swollen eye he knows he's getting will disguise any hint of guilt on his face.

"I'm done with this," the SHIELD medic says, gesturing, "but I'd really like for you to come with us for observation. You may be concussed. That's a serious beating you just took."

"Head wounds always look worse than they are," Clint says, as if the SHIELD medic wouldn't know that. "I'm not concussed."

"I could order you, you know," Hill says, still looking at Clint as if he's hiding something. Which he is, all right, yeah, but that's not the point.

"I'm _fine_ ," Clint insists, putting down the ice pack and pulling the cotton wads out of his nose with a suppressed wince. "See? My nose isn't even bleeding anymore."

"Hm," Hill says, in a tone that's completely impossible to read. Really, it could mean absolutely anything, and Clint works hard to hide all traces of nervousness.

"Do you have someone who can stay with you?" the medic asks.

"Sure, yeah," Clint lies. "I'll call my ex-wife."

At that, Director Hill rolls her eyes, because _that_ is somehow apparently a lie she'll readily believe, go figure.

The medic seems happy with that, and once that's settled, Clint lets himself space out a little bit while SHIELD agents mill around him, gathering evidence and trying to figure out how the fuck the guy even got into Clint's apartment in the first place. By the time they start to clear out of his place, Director Hill's suspicious looks have reduced greatly in both frequency and intensity, and she almost looks sympathetic when she stops in front of Clint to tell him she's leaving.

"You sure you wanna stay here?"

"I'm sure," Clint says. "Lightning never strikes twice, right?"

Hill frowns at him. "I don't think that's how the saying goes."

"I'll be fine," Clint insists again. He genuinely doesn't think whoever is out to get him will try again tonight.

"I'm half tempted to give you a security detail downstairs," Hill says, in a tone that makes it clear that she won't actually do it, but is honestly entertaining the notion.

"Why, Director, I didn't know you cared," Clint says, making an exaggerated kissyface at her, because apparently he likes flirting with death.

"I recruited you for a reason," Hill says, and Clint's mind is suddenly flooded with memories. He can still recall that day perfectly, being young and tired and cornered, looking down the barrel of her gun and wondering why she wasn't pulling the trigger. The knowledge that Hill still, despite everything, considers him valuable enough to protect is oddly touching.

"Agent Barton," Hill says, narrowing her eyes at him like she wants to say something, before settling on, "Get some rest," instead.

Clint nods. "Yes, ma'am."

*

Clint sits on his couch in the darkness. He's sleepy, but the lingering adrenaline rush won't let him rest yet. His coffee table's in splinters, his kitchen furniture is haphazardly shoved around, there are still smears of blood on his floor, and Clint just--sits.

The voice, when it comes, is somehow completely unsurprising.

"You okay?"

Clint turns to his bedroom door to find Phil leaning against the door frame. He can barely make out the familiar face in the darkness.

"Oh, you know," Clint says. "I'm reconsidering my alarm system, since it appears anyone can get in here, I mean, the fuck did you do, just--scale the building and climb through my window, which by the way _also_ has an alarm on it?"

Phil's face betrays nothing, but he came from Clint's bedroom, and there's no other way in than the window.

"But," Clint continues, when it's clear Phil's not going to answer him, "other than that, I'm just peachy."

Phil's suit isn't pinstripe today, Clint notices dimly. It's black. Pitch black. It looks somber.

Phil looks down, mouth tightening into a vaguely downturned line. "I told you not to keep digging." He pauses and shakes his head, hands in his pockets. "The more you dig, the worse it's going to get. Right now, they probably want to talk to you before they kill you. But at some point, that will change to a straight kill order."

"I'm not worried," Clint says, even though he kind of is.

"You should be," Phil says, raising his head to meet Clint's eyes.

Clint studies Phil for a while. Some of the finer lines in his face are impossible to see in the darkness, but Phil's eyes look blank and serious, and the corners of his mouth still turn down a little, like he's sad.

"If they issue a kill order, will they make _you_ do it?" Clint guesses.

Phil snorts.

Clint raises an eyebrow. "That a yes?"

"A definite no," Phil says firmly, pushing off the door frame to take a few careful steps towards Clint. "I don't work for them."

"I see," Clint says, inexplicably relieved. "And--who are _they_?"

"Bad news," Phil says.

"I'm glad you're in a sharing mood," Clint says sarcastically. "If they're such bad news, don't you think I should know who I'm up against?"

"You shouldn't be alone tonight," Phil says, completely changing gears in a blatant attempt at deflection.

"We're not doing this again," Clint says, because every part of his body aches and even if he could overcome the guilt that's currently flooding him, he's not sure he could even get it up, with how his body's aching.

"I feel like I've heard that before," Phil muses, smiling a little, before taking two more steps across the woodpile and stopping directly in front of Clint. Looking down at him, hands still in his pockets, Phil looks deceptively casual, eyes glinting in the darkness, and Clint suddenly wants nothing more than to lean forward and rest his head against Phil, put his arms around him and hang on. He just feels so _tired_.

Something must show on his face, or maybe Phil's just crazy perceptive like that, because his smile falters.

Clint swallows. "Why all the secrets, Phil? Why can't you just tell me what the fuck is happening?"

For a startling moment, Phil's entire face twists as if he's in pain, but then the expression is gone, as fast as it appeared. Clint would have questioned if it was there at all, except he trusts his vision, even when it's blurry and slightly distorted in one eye, which is busy swelling shut.

"Why can't you just--back off?" Phil asks, and he sounds as tired as Clint feels. "People are going to end up dead. _You're_ going to end up dead."

Clint swallows again, and breathes heavily through his nose, trying to get himself under control. "Why do you care?"

For a long moment, Phil doesn't answer. Clint wonders what he's thinking. Finally, Phil smiles a little, bitter and nasty, and shakes his head. "You're not my assignment."

Clint puts a mental notch in his _Assassin_ column, and completely crosses out the whole _Human Trafficker_ column.

"Good to know I'm special," Clint says dryly. "Or not, as the case may be."

Phil looks like something shatters in his chest. When he sinks to his knees in front of Clint, carefully presses in between the V of his legs, Clint sucks in a sharp breath and holds it for a moment.

"What are you doing?" he asks, even though that's fucking dumb as hell. He knows what Phil is doing.

"You know what I'm doing," Phil says, an echo of Clint's thoughts. It's not the first time they've been in sync like this, and Clint swallows heavily.

Phil's hands are steady when they reach for Clint's jeans, unbuckling his belt and opening his fly in a matter of seconds. His grip is warm and gentle as he pulls down Clint's underwear so he can get out the soft cock underneath. Without thinking too hard on it, Clint lifts his hips a little bit so he can push his jeans and boxers down further, just enough so they're not squeezing his balls and the fabric isn't stretched so tightly across his lap.

One corner of Phil's mouth twitches a little when Clint moves, and for a second Clint thinks it might blossom into a fully smug grin, but then it's gone again.

"You're going to get me fired," Clint says, which is _also_ dumb as hell. He's going to get his own ass fired, all because he can't turn down a fucking blowjob from an assassin in a three-piece suit, what the actual _fuck_ , Barton--

But Phil looks at Clint with sad eyes and says, "You're going to get yourself killed."

He doesn't sound worried. He sounds confident and sure, like he always does. Like he's stating facts. Like this is just how it is, and Clint will end up dead.

For a long moment, that statement hangs in the air between them, and Clint doesn't know how to respond. Phil's sad expression slides back into an unreadable poker face, and Clint tries for lighthearted: "You sure know how to set the mood."

Phil looks down at Clint's cock, which is stirring underneath Phil's eyes and his palm. He's not even moving, not even fondling Clint or anything, just holding him, but Clint's dick doesn't seem to care in the least, and what do you know? He _can_ get it up despite his injuries. Clint can't help it; it's the proximity of Phil, Phil's warm breath, Phil's mouth.

"Seems to be working for you," Phil says, and finally sounds a little more lighthearted, a little teasing.

"Shut up," Clint says, not really embarrassed, just to have something to say.

Phil smiles a little. "Want me to make a joke about finding some other way to occupy my mouth?"

Clint starts to laugh and then has to stop because _everything hurts_. "Please don't," he says, settling on smiling.

"Please don't find another way to occupy my mouth?" Phil asks, and he's definitely teasing now.

"You're such an asshole," Clint says, and he knows he sounds so fond when he says it, but he can't hold it back. He can't stop it.

Phil leans down, breath ghosting over the head of Clint's dick. "Yeah," he says, and he doesn't say anything else, but Clint can't help feeling like there was supposed to be something else there.

_Yeah, but you like me anyway._

Heart skipping a beat in his chest, Clint says, "Phil, I--" and then nothing else, because Phil's sucking his dick.

Gasping, Clint lets his head fall back against the couch, staring at the ceiling with his one good eye and trying not to move too much. Phil's mouth is so soft, so wet, so warm, and the urge to thrust is strong.

Phil's got one hand on Clint's hip, and the other stretched up to splay across the side of Clint's ribs, careful not to push on any sore spots. His tongue is pressing against the underside of Clint's cock, and when he drags his lips down so that Clint's cock hits the back of his throat, Clint has to close his eyes altogether.

"Phil," Clint breathes, and he wants to look, wants to see Phil's head moving in his lap, but he can't right now. He aches too much, and the brief twinges of pain somehow only elevate the pleasure of having Phil's mouth on him, taking him in, swallowing him down.

There's a faint moan from Phil, and Clint can feel it more than see it. It sends sparks of pleasure through Clint's body, from his cock and out into every limb, and Clint still knows this is a terrible idea, but again he finds himself completely unable to care.

Phil sucks cock like Clint's pleasure is the only thing that matters in the world. Phil sucks cock like Clint _means_ something to him. It's enough to steal Clint's breath away again, and his hips briefly hitch up, not enough for his cock to go too deep into Phil's mouth, but just enough so that his pleasure and enjoyment get through to Phil.

All too soon, Clint can feel his balls drawing up, tensing, tightening, in anticipation of the oncoming orgasm, and he breathes deeply, tries to be calm, even as he can feel his skin heat across his neck and chest. "I'm close," Clint warns, because he has no idea if Phil swallows when he's not sucking cock for a mission, but not even that thought is enough to diminish the sensations racing through his body, building and building.

Phil doesn't budge, simply sucking harder, and there's pressure in Clint's balls and his chest and behind his swollen eyelid, all mixing together in an explosion of pain-pleasure. Clint spills into Phil's mouth with a grunt he couldn't hold back even if he tried.

Phil holds him in his mouth, patiently, gently, and continues to suck until Clint's done shooting and his thighs are done trembling. Panting, Clint opens his eyes and finds Phil looking up at him, lips still stretched obscenely around his hard cock. Clint tries to catch his breath; he feels like his head is underwater.

When Phil finally pulls off Clint's cock, a small drop of jizz escapes from between his lips and drips down onto his lapel, leaving a smear on his black suit. Phil doesn't seem to care; he just swallows and then licks his lips, and Clint blinks dumbly at him.

He doesn't know how long he sits there with his dick hanging out, staring at Phil as his breathing slowly returns to normal. Eventually the silence is broken by Phil, voice a little rough from cocksucking. "You should try to get some rest."

"I don't," Clint tries, but his voice cracks. Coughing once, he tries again. "I don't think I'm supposed to fall asleep. Medic said I might have a concussion."

Phil looks at Clint for several long seconds. "And what do you think?"

"I don't have a concussion," Clint says immediately, and he's reasonably sure he's telling the truth. He's about to make a lewd comment about returning the favor, because fuck it, he's already in enough shit--or he will be, once this all blows up in his face--so what's one more blowjob anyway? Besides, he likes Phil's cock. Misses it, even. And he would like to suck it, like Phil sucked him.

He never gets to make that comment however, because Phil rubs both hands down Clint's thighs a couple of times, comforting and firm, before carefully tucking Clint's dick away again. "Get some sleep. I'll make sure you're all right."

Clint arches an eyebrow. "What, you gonna watch me sleep like a big creeper?"

"That's what gives you the creeps about me?" Phil asks, which, okay, he has a point. Clint rolls his eyes instead of answering.

It makes Phil chuckle a little, and he stands up with surprising fluidity and grace. In the darkness, Clint can barely make out Phil's erection, pushing against the front of his pants. Clint frowns and carefully gestures, suppressing a wince at the movement.

"You sure you don't want me to--"

"Sleep," Phil orders again, but he doesn't sound angry or sad anymore.

Clint would like to object further, but every part of his body still hurts, and his head is still leaned back against his couch cushions. So Phil says sleep, and Clint dimly thinks, _Okay_ and doesn't know if he actually says the word out loud or not, before he's out like a light.

*

When Clint wakes up, he's alone in his apartment. Somehow he's ended up lying down on the couch, and the ratty blanket he normally keeps in his closet has been pulled over him. It was quite a feat to move him without waking him, Clint thinks, especially since when he carefully sits up, he has to suppress a groan of pain. Even weirder is the blanket. Like Phil gave enough of a shit about him to not only make sure he was sleeping in a comfortable position, but also to find the blanket and actually pull it over him?

Something inside Clint clenches tightly, something that has absolutely nothing to do with his physical injuries, and he has to take a few moments to breathe deeply and evenly. Once he's got himself more or less under control, he takes in the rest of the apartment, quiet and calm, sunlight filtering in through the windows.

The pile of wood that was his coffee table has been pushed into a neat pile that will be easy to clean up. His furniture has been put back in its proper place, and there's very little sign of the fight that took place there only a few hours prior, or the dozens of SHIELD agents that trampled through afterwards. Even the blood on Clint's kitchen floor is gone.

On Clint's kitchen table sits his bow case.

Clint stands in the kitchen doorway and stares at the case for a long time. He doesn't know what to make of all this. He doesn't want to examine the ache in his chest closer.

He wonders where Phil is now. What he's doing.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Clint pushes everything down--all the guilt and the pain and the feeling that he's doesn't want to name--and sets about making coffee. He's got to get to work. He'll be late.

*

When he gets into the office, Sitwell raises an eyebrow behind his glasses, like Clint getting the shit beat out of him is a source of annoyance to him.

"So is this related to the incident taking place last night that Director Hill was talking about, or is this something else, involving maybe a secret club and a rule that says you can't talk about it?"

"Ha," Clint says, slouching down in the chair across from Sitwell's desk. "You're a fucking comedian."

Sitwell narrows his eyes at Clint, nudging a full coffee cup across the desk towards him. Clint gratefully closes both hands around the warm cup and doesn't question how Sitwell managed to have fresh coffee waiting for him.

"Seriously though, you okay?" Sitwell asks. "Hill said you might not even come in today."

"What, this?" Clint asks, gesturing to his face, which he knows has turned several impressive shades of green-yellow-purple-red. At least he can see out of both eyes now, the swelling having gone down enough for his vision to clear up. Clint always feels a little off-kilter when his vision is fucked up for any reason. "You should see the other guy."

"I did," Sitwell says. "In the morgue. Speaking of, I have the report right here." He leans over and digs out a thick folder, flipping through a couple of pages before nodding. "Good news and bad news, Barton, your call?"

"I don't care," Clint says frankly.

"Good news is, you didn't kill the guy," Sitwell says. "Cyanide did. Which is old school as hell, but there you go. Looks like he was hiding a capsule in his mouth, disguised as a tooth."

"A tooth?" Clint asks, wrinkling his nose and pretending it doesn't hurt his face to do so.

"Yeah, real old timey spy stuff," Sitwell says, nodding. "And you said you have no clue who this guy is?"

"None," Clint confirms, leaning over to look at the photo attached to the folder in Sitwell's hands. "No, definitely not. Never seen him before."

"Hm," Sitwell says, and Clint gets the vague feeling Sitwell's not entirely convinced. If SHIELD agents weren't naturally a distrustful bunch of assholes, and he hadn't only worked with Sitwell for a mere couple of days, he might be more offended.

"Anyway, the bad news is, we can't get a lead on this guy. At all. Prints show nothing, DNA shows nothing, dental records show nothing. For all we know, this guy doesn't exist. We have no clue who he is, what he wanted, or how he got into your place. Obviously it's connected to this case, probably the man in the suit who sent him--"

"You really think so?" Clint asks, mouth running away from him again.

Sitwell stares at him. "Who else would it be?"

Clint makes a face. "Eh, you're probably right," he says, before trying to deflect. "Look, this detective bullshit isn't my strong suit, Sitwell, you know, I'm a field agent, I'm Ops, I'm not a papermill coroner's reports kinda guy. Give me a long range weapon and a target, that's where my skillset lies, okay?"

"You're not getting out of this paperwork," Sitwell says, and Clint slumps down in the chair in a feigned display of annoyed disappointment.

"You're a fucking pain in the ass," Clint grumbles, for added effect.

"I'm sure we'll find someone for you to shoot soon enough," Sitwell says sarcastically.

"Fantastic. Any more good news while we're at it?" Clint asks.

"Well, Dr. Harris sent us the DNA results on your playboy," Sitwell says, leafing through a few papers and raising an eyebrow in annoyance. "Non-results, more like it. No hits. No matches. Nothing. Nothing. And more nothing."

Clint sighs and resists the urge to hang his head like a child. "And the possible leak? Where are we with that?"

"Where aren't we, you mean?" Sitwell says, rolling his eyes. "All our lines have been checked and double checked, and all security protocols are still in place. I think Hill's got Agent May on the case. She was snooping around earlier. But who the fuck knows with her, I have made it a rule to never ask May what she's up to, because there's a good chance I won't like the answer. For all we know it might not even be internal. God, I fucking _hope_ it's not an internal leak."

"Yeah, me too," Clint says, but his gut is churning with the increasing confidence that there's a leak in SHIELD. All the signs are there in the knowledge Phil's had so far, from the details about the contents of the flash drive, to the casual remark about SHIELD's prisoner regs.

"What if May's the leak?" Clint asks without really thinking about it.

"Melinda May?" Sitwell scoffs. "Melinda _The Cavalry_ May? Come the fuck on, Barton."

"It was just a thought," Clint says defensively, making a face. While he's never gotten to know Melinda May that well personally, mostly out of self-preservation, he still knows her well enough to know she wouldn't betray SHIELD. Then, just to be an ass, he adds, "What if _you're_ the leak, sir?"

"Gonna pretend you didn't say that," Sitwell says, glaring, and Clint stifles a snicker.

Still, it means they've basically got jack shit. Clint feels like this whole case is making less and less sense. "Now what?"

"Now," Sitwell says, arranging the open folders and paperwork on his desk, "we go back to Cutter, since that's the only lead we have that's even remotely solid."

Groaning, Clint slides so low in the chair he's almost on the floor for a moment before sitting up straight again. Sitwell's looking at him like he's a child, and Clint resists the urge to pout. Deflection or not, he fucking _hates_ paperwork.

"Lucky for you, I've already done most of the boring work," Sitwell says. "This is a list of all the names we've recovered from Cutter's paperwork." He looks a little smug as he slides a sheet of paper across his desk towards Clint.

Clint doesn't quite smile gratefully at Sitwell, because that would imply that Sitwell did him a solid, which in turn would imply that Clint owes him. And Clint refuses to let Sitwell have that satisfaction. Still, it's damn near, as he sees the perfectly printed and neatly arranged list Sitwell has put together.

"How many do you think we're missing?" Clint asks, eyes already scanning the names. "And how many of these do you think are false?"

"All of them," Sitwell says, shrugging. "Easily. I don't know how many we're missing, though. We're cross referencing the whole list with known aliases in our database, but so far we haven't come up with much."

"Maybe they aren't aliases," Clint muses. "Maybe they're Cutter's own system or code to keep track of them?"

"Could be. We'll see."

Clint suddenly finds a familiar name on the list, and one eyebrow twitches a little, his entire face trying to contort itself. He only holds back his reaction through sheer force of will. If this is the kind of clientele Cutter's keeping, no wonder they can't find anything. Any of these people would be far too good to be tracked.

"What's the matter?" Sitwell says, sounding suspicious. "See a name you recognize?"

"No," Clint says, tapping the paper. "Just wondering if _any_ of these people are legit, because if not, that's a lot of fucking criminals all using the same goddamn tailor."

Sitwell snorts. "Certainly not all, but a fair part of them, is my guess. Guess the man built up a reputation. We'll hand the list over to Administration and let them deal with opening new cases."

Clint nods and decides to play the cards close to his chest for now. If it leads anywhere, then he'll alert Sitwell, he tells himself, and only then. But there's no need to get Sitwell involved yet, if at all. Besides, she would literally kill him if he did.

*

Clint begs off work early, blaming his injuries, and ignores how guilty it makes him feel. He's already carrying enough guilt to drown a man; what's a little more added to the flood? There is exactly one person he can trust with this, but getting a hold of her isn't always possible. Clint still has to try though, so he goes straight to the deli on 95th, picks up a sandwich and a bottle of Coke, and tells the guy behind the counter, "I'd like exact change, please."

The guy raises an eyebrow and says, "You sure about that?"

Clint just stares unflinchingly at him until he shrugs and says, "Of course, sir," which honestly is quite surprising. Now all Clint has to do is wait. If the guy had said he was out of pennies, it'd be a different story, but apparently the universe seems to have decided that Clint deserves some luck thrown his way.

Clint takes his sandwich to Central Park, picks a bench at random and sits down to wait. Hours pass by. Clint waits and tries to think about nothing, and doesn't care that it's getting dark outside. The sandwich is long gone, and the soda is pressing uncomfortably on his bladder by the time she finally shows up. He hears her before he sees her.

"How did you know I was in New York?"

Clint chuckles a little to himself and turns to find Natasha looking at him, her head slightly tilted. Her red hair falls in soft waves across her shoulders; last time he saw her, it was cropped short. "Lucky guess," he says, before gesturing. "You grew out your hair."

"You didn't," she says, a hint of a smile on her face.

"I'm glad you came to see me," Clint says, a little terrified, but mostly relieved. "I wasn't sure if you would. Not after--not with everything we--not since--"

"--you went straight?" she finishes for him, walking closer. She carefully stops just out of arm's reach, but Clint knows that if push comes to shove, she could wipe the floor with him regardless. The only way he stands a fighting chance against the Black Widow is if he's got a bow in his hands and some distance between them. At the moment he has neither, and he hopes she realizes the intent behind that.

"I didn't really go straight, per se," Clint says, drawing the sentence out a little, and she rolls her eyes.

"I see your sense of humor hasn't improved."

"I was about to say the same thing about you," Clint remarks.

"What do you want, Barton?"

She's still got a hint of a smile on her face, but Clint can tell she's losing patience. Natasha is efficient, as always.

Clint's own smile falters a little. "I need a favor."

She stares at him, not bothering to hide her disbelief, or maybe making sure to broadcast it, Clint's never sure how much of what she lets him see is intentional. "You gotta be kidding me."

"You know I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important," Clint says, well aware that he's sinking to new lows, here.

"You think I'll help SHIELD?" she asks, arching an eyebrow. "That's a tall order, Barton, especially considering you've cost me my tailor."

"Couldn't be helped," Clint says, trying to sound apologetic, but probably failing. "Didn't figure him for your style, anyway."

"I can't enjoy a good suit?" she asks.

Clint doesn't answer, because he doesn't know what Cutter did for her, but he knows it sure as hell wasn't suits. "I'm not asking for SHIELD," Clint clarifies, instead. "I'm asking for me."

She pauses, eyes narrowing the slightest bit, before all emotion vanishes from her face in an instant. It's like she slipped on a mask, and it creeps Clint the fuck out.

"What are you playing at?" she asks.

"I'm not playing at anything," Clint says. "I just--I need to find a guy."

Natasha stares at him. "Why? Who?"

"I just do," Clint says, rubbing his neck a little. "It's a long story--I need--he's like you."

"A professional," she says, understanding clearly dawning on her. When she smirks again, it's not as honest, not as open. Clint can tell. "If you need someone crossed off, you can just ask me, you know?"

Clint sighs. "That's--that's not what I mean."

"Who is it you're after?" Natasha asks. "I doubt it's a coworker, since your new digs seem pretty cushy, and I don't think you'd jeopardize all that. A mark? A criminal that you can't touch? What's the matter, Barton, finding your newfound life of freedom a little too restrictive?"

"Since when does the Black Widow care about the whys?"

"Since she's being asked to grant favors without getting paid," she shoots back.

"Please," he says, which in and of itself is completely unlike him. If she's surprised to see him beg, she doesn't show it. He decides what the hell, and goes for broke, laying it on thick: "Remember Prague? I'm not saying you owe me for Prague, I'm just saying that the grappling arrow turned out to be a really great idea. That's all."

That makes her narrow her eyes, and Clint knows he's got her.

"You're lucky I like you," she says.

"You don't like anyone," he says back, smiling, because believing that the Black Widow cares about you is a misstep, and he's not _that_ stupid.

Natasha smirks before looking away, clearly considering for a moment.

"Details?"

Clint doesn't sigh in relief, but only because he feels like that would be too revealing. "Late 40s, early 50s. Caucasian. Smooth talker, expensive suits. Probably shares your tailor." Clint hesitates for a moment. "Might be presently going by the name Phil."

She looks at him for a little while, like she's studying his face for clues as to why he's asking this of her. Clint carefully keeps his face as blank as possible, and he doesn't know what she sees, but eventually she nods once. "Give me twenty-four hours."

He doesn't thank her, because he's already made the importance of the situation clear, and she doesn't say anything else, simply turning and walking away.

"By the way," Clint calls after her, "burn the Natalie Rushman persona. It's been compromised."

She turns and walks backwards a couple of steps. "Who's Natalie Rushman?" she says, before disappearing around a corner.

*

Clint dreams about Phil. Phil's face swimming in front of him, smiling, before twisting into something ugly and awful, blood splattered across his face.

_What the fuck did I stumble across?_ Clint asks.

_You're going to get yourself killed_ , Phil says back, but he sounds cold, smug, pleased.

Clint jerks awake to the sound of his phone ringing on the nightstand, and he gasps for air, chest heaving. It's barely daybreak outside, and his phone's display says _Hill_.

Clint's hand doesn't shake as he grabs his phone and answers it, but it's a near thing.

"Hello?"

"Agent Barton," Director Hill says, sounding very serious. "There's been an incident."


	3. Chapter 3

When Clint gets to the hospital, Director Hill meets him with a grim look, hands on her hips.

"How is he?" Clint asks, worried despite himself. "How are they?"

"Alive," Hill says, leading Clint down a hallway and to an observation room. Through the window, Clint can see Sitwell's still form in a hospital bed, medical personnel crowding around him and adjusting machines and equipment. "He made it through surgery, which is something, but that's pretty much it, so far."

Clint swallows. He likes Sitwell. Despite himself, he likes Sitwell, and he can't shake the feeling that this is on him. That he could have prevented this if he'd come clean about Phil from the start.

"And Agent May?"

"Her condition's stable," Hill says. "She's still unconscious, but she's in a lot better shape than Sitwell."

Clint watches Sitwell's heart rate monitor and hates himself a little. "What--what happened?"

Maria Hill takes a deep breath and holds it for a moment. If she were anyone else, it would have been a hesitation, and that's not a good sign. Director Hill doesn't hesitate.

"Ma'am?" Clint frowns.

Hill's lips tighten in a thin line, and she looks straight ahead. "They both suffered severe injuries--"

"Where's Agent May?" Clint asks, suspicion growing.

Hill finally looks at Clint again.

"We found them in a parking lot up in the Bronx. Agent Sitwell took four slugs to the chest. Agent May took one to the chest and another one that grazed her head. She's in better shape than Agent Sitwell, but he definitely didn't go down without a fight. They've both got multiple contusions and Agent Sitwell suffered a skull fracture and a severe concussion. Ballistics has already looked at the bullets."

Hill does that weird thing that's almost-but-not-quite a hesitation again, and anger unexpectedly stirs in Clint's chest, because he immediately _knows_ what she's trying to say.

"They shot each other," Clint states, not asking, and the look Hill gives him tells him he's right.

Clint stares at Sitwell's body, so still and pale, and swallows heavily. "What... what the...? How...?" He can't form a complete sentence, too many questions running through his head all at once. "Who's--which one of them--"

"We don't know all the facts yet, Agent Barton," Hill reminds him, not unkindly. "Agent May is expected to regain consciousness before Agent Sitwell, and we'll talk with her then."

"Talk," Clint repeats flatly, and Hill's look sharpens.

"Yes," she says firmly, "talk. Do you have a problem with that, Agent Barton?"

"No, ma'am," Clint says, scowling, but Hill's not convinced--no surprise, considering Clint's not even attempting to hide his anger.

"Agent Barton," Hill snarls, "let me be very clear on this: I still have at least _one_ loyal Agent of SHIELD lying in a bed in this hospital, and I refuse to treat one of my own as a traitor until the evidence is conclusive, do you understand me?"

The very idea that Sitwell could be the leak seems impossible, but Clint's only known the guy for a few days. What the fuck does he know? Then again, he's well aware of Melinda May's reputation in SHIELD, and he can't bring himself to entertain the idea that she's the leak, either.

"Yes, Director Hill," he bites out, unhappy and angry with the whole world.

Judging by Director Hill's face, she feels much the same way.

*

Hill told him to stay out of things, but Clint's already too involved.

Agent West greets him with an arched eyebrow when he leans on her desk and gives her a winning smile. If it doesn't quite reach his eyes, she's kind enough not to comment on it.

"Agent Barton, what can I do for you?"

"Phone records," he says without preamble. She's no-nonsense, and he likes that. "I need Agent Sitwell's phone records going back thirty-six hours. Private, work, anything you can find. Actually, throw in e-mail, too." He doesn't think he'll find anything in Sitwell's e-mail, but it's best to check every possibility, right?

Agent West looks a little confused. "Any particular reason?"

"None you're cleared to know about," Clint says apologetically, and oddly, that's what makes her smile.

"Fair enough," she says. It takes her a few minutes, but eventually a file pops up on her screen with a few scattered lines on it. "All right, Agent Sitwell made seven calls from his work phone yesterday, nothing terribly exciting that I can see. A couple to R&D, a couple to Director Hill, one to you, and two to Records..."

She scrolls down a little. "He only made one phone call from his home phone yesterday, to Agent May."

Clint very carefully doesn't react. "And his e-mail?" he says, mostly just to keep Agent West distracted, because he's found what he was looking for. On Agent West's screen, Clint notices that Sitwell made the call to May around 2 a.m. He must have discovered something. Called her, agreed to meet. Maybe she--

Clint cuts that train of thought off fast, because he doesn't know the facts yet. He doesn't want to believe it, but as much as he hates to admit it, there's also a chance that Sitwell called her to draw her out. Lure her into a trap.

"I'll have these e-mails sent to your desk if you want?" Agent West says, and Clint belatedly realizes that she must have been talking to him and noticed his distraction.

"Yeah," he says, "Uh, yeah, that'd be great. Thanks."

She smiles carefully at him again, and he does his best to return it. He's far less successful this time.

*

Clint spends the next day going over everything Sitwell has on their case, which isn't much more than what Clint already knew. He spends a good few hours scouring the list of who knew the finer details of Clint's original mission, trying to see if anything will jump out at him, but in the end the only thing he gains from it is a headache. Rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, Clint groans in frustration and then goes down to the shooting range, where he kills some more time with his bow, once again wrestling with the decision of coming clean to Director Hill.

It's gone too far, he realizes, right about the time he runs out of arrows for the sixth time. Hill would not only fire him and throw him in a cell for the rest of his life, she might actually kill him with her bare hands.

Clint doesn't know who to trust anymore. The ever-present feeling in his gut that tells him something is very, very wrong is constantly growing stronger. And no matter what Clint does, he keeps coming back to the only thing he knows for sure: Sitwell is hurt. And he might have been able to prevent it.

*

It's not until Clint gets back to his building that things take a slight upturn--as far as these things go, anyway. There's a small card in his mailbox; an amateurishly printed invitation to a free screening of some foreign arthouse flick for that same evening. Clint would normally throw it out along with all his other junk mail, but the logo has a faint hourglass shape to it, and that means something.

It's been a long day, so Clint decides to take the time to dart upstairs and microwave himself a couple of Hot Pockets before he heads back out.

The movie theater is small and run down, with only two screens, and the employee who takes his screening invitation gives him a headtilt, as if he's vaguely confused by Clint's presence there. Awkwardly rubbing his neck, Clint can't help but feel horribly out of place, and he wonders if maybe he should have changed clothes first. He doesn't stick out like a sore thumb or anything, he doesn't think, but he looks nothing like the two hipsters he has to weave around to get into the right screen.

Once inside, Clint lets his eyes adjust to the dim light before scanning the scattered patrons. On the screen, a woman is giving an impassioned and teary speech in a language that could be--Dutch, maybe? There are no subtitles. Clint doesn't know, and a moment later he doesn't care, when he spots who he's looking for.

Natasha's sitting near the back, a bucket of popcorn in her lap, her eyes transfixed on the screen. It's only the way the corners of her mouth twitch faintly that lets Clint know she's seen him, and he makes his way to her, sliding into the seat next to her.

"You're late," she says in a voice that's perfectly pitched to reach his ears, but not draw immediate attention from the other people in the theater. She's still got that almost-smile on her face, but her tone is annoyed.

"Guy's gotta eat," Clint says, shrugging a little. He wonders if she'll stab him if he tries to steal some of her popcorn. It's looking very inviting.

She gives him a look that says she still doesn't think it's an excuse, wordlessly pulling a thick file from underneath the seat in front of her and handing it over.

Clint stares at the file and blinks. "That's--a lot."

"If I take a job, I don't half-ass it," she says, clearly offended. "Even if I'm not getting paid for it."

The last part is said with a pointed look in Clint's direction, and he stares hard at the file to avoid meeting her eyes instead. Hesitating for only a moment, he flips open the folder. From the top of the pile, Phil's face stares up at him, easily identifiable in the light from the movie screen. His photo is attached to the top documents with a black paper clip. _Certificate of Death,_ the paper declares, in fat, serif letters. _Commonwealth of Pennsylvania._

Further study of the papers reveal more than Clint could have ever hoped for: bank records, driver's license copies, old leases--

"Are these his high school transcripts?" Clint asks incredulously.

Natasha shrugs again.

"You should know, though," she says, a warning note in her voice, "his trail stops with that document." She gestures at the death certificate on top. "After that, I haven't been able to dig up anything. I have a few feelers out, but nothing that I can guarantee will pay off, and certainly not within a certain timeframe."

"Nothing?" Clint asks, frowning.

"Nothing," Natasha confirms. "Your guy's either actually dead and you're dealing with an impostor, or he's really good."

Clint doesn't comment on that as he tucks the file into his belt at the small of his back. It feels a little awkward, but his jacket will conceal it easily.

"Thanks," he says honestly. Natasha rolls her eyes and shoves more popcorn into her mouth.

A thought occurs to Clint then, and he considers for a moment, hesitating instead of getting up and out of his seat. Natasha must sense his hesitation, because she turns to him and arches a questioning eyebrow. Clint considers his bank account. He considers the risk as best as he can, and then decides that regardless, it's looking more and more likely that he'll come out of this mess either dead or in a jail cell, so he might as well take a chance.

All right, it's probably one of the dumbest things he'll ever do, but so's sleeping with Phil. Clint figures he's on a roll, so he might as well keep going.

"Hey, uh," he says, clearing his throat a little. "Can I hire you?"

It's not often Clint can recall Natasha looking genuinely surprised, but she does now, eyes widening ever so slightly. "You want to hire me?" She smirks. "I thought you got out. And why can't you take care of it yourself, if you didn't get out?"

"Just to dig up more information," Clint explains. "Come on, Natasha. I was good, you know I was, but I'm a grunt. I point and shoot. I don't have your--network, you know, your connections."

"I'll give you that," she agrees, eyes going back to the screen again. The Dutch-sounding lady is _still_ monologuing. "It was always one of your weaknesses, Barton."

"I didn't have any weaknesses," he says stubbornly, just to contradict her. "I had--quirks."

She apparently decides to humor him, because she doesn't object. She just sighs, barely perceptible under the Dutch woman's words. "What do you need?"

"A flash drive," Clint says. "It was most likely at a company in Minnesota up until recently. I was there to get it. It had been replaced with a dud."

"Any suspects?" she asks, with a pointed look towards the small of Clint's back and the file he's hidden there.

"None," he says, and lets her think that he's lying.

She eats popcorn and considers for a long time; onscreen, the Dutch woman finally stops ranting, and lets her friend (enemy? Another woman) comfort her.

"Standard fees apply," Natasha finally says, looking sideways at Clint. "I didn't know you had that kinda money anymore."

Clint sighs dejectedly and slumps in his seat. "Meh. Who needs a retirement fund, anyway."

To his great surprise, Natasha laughs a little. It's a barely-there throaty chuckle, but it's genuine and warm, and she sounds a little regretful when she says, "Not people like us, Barton."

"No," he agrees. "Not people like us."

Going for broke, in every sense of the word, he leans over and steals some of her popcorn. She watches him with narrowed eyes, but thankfully doesn't cut his hand off.

"Turnaround?" he asks.

"With that little information? Probably three days, at least. Maybe a week."

"That's okay," Clint says, thinking about Sitwell in the hospital and Melinda May in the hospital, and everything he still doesn't know about Phil. He's itching to read the file.

"I'll see you around," he says, moving to get out of his seat.

"You don't want to see the rest of the movie?" Natasha asks, gesturing towards the screen.

"Uh," Clint says. "I don't really know... Dutch."

"Consider this a good opportunity to learn, then," she says.

And maybe it's the long day (week, month, year, _life_ ) Clint's had, or maybe it's because he's slowly realizing that his circle of friends is pretty much non-existent, but he decides to stay.

"Okay," he agrees. "But I want some more popcorn."

Wordlessly, Natasha tilts her bucket towards him. Clint considers it a win. It's not a terrible end to an otherwise shitty day.

*

She disappears the instant the credits start rolling. Clint's still not sure what the movie was about, he just knows there was a lot of talking and crying, but he liked the mood it set.

On a whim, he takes the subway to the hospital before heading home, going to check up on Sitwell and May, but it doesn't bring him any further clues as to what happened. Sitwell is still unconscious, still in critical condition, but at least they let Clint see him for a couple of minutes.

Clint's seen a lot of people he cares about in hospital beds. He's seen a lot of people he cares about in morgues. He's not shocked by the pale skin, the bruises, the tubes or bandages that seem to cover every inch of Sitwell's body. The fact that he's missing his glasses, however, seems wrong somehow. Clint stands at his bedside, listening to the sounds of the monitors around him, and tries to imagine Sitwell as a bad guy.

Clint wishes Sitwell would wake up, already.

"Has he had any other visitors?" Clint asks when the nurse leads him out of the room again.

"Mm, just Agent Barnes," the nurse says, and Clint nearly trips over his own feet, stopping dead in his tracks.

"Agent Barnes?"

"Yeah, he's with you guys, right? He had a badge and everything. Level Five, James Barnes, middle-aged gentleman?"

For a moment Clint doesn't want to ask again, because he can't have been this stupid, but at the same time...

"White guy?" Clint asks. "Was he by any chance wearing a suit?"

The nurse's slight frown deepens. "No, no suit, but he was white. Brown hair, kind smile, bit of a receding hairline, big mustache."

Clint resists the urge to facepalm.

"Hey, let me know if the guy--Agent Barnes--comes back, will ya?" Clint asks, digging up a scrap of paper from his pocket and scribbling down his cell phone number.

"Is everything all right?" the nurse asks, a worried look on her face.

"Everything's fine," Clint reassures her, going for his most disarming smile. He's not sure how well it's working, but she relaxes and her face clears a little, so at least the effort is not entirely useless. "Just wanna catch up with the guy, you know?"

"All right," she says, smile slowly reappearing.

"And let me know the second something changes with Agent Sitwell, too," Clint adds, looking back down the hallway. He really wishes Sitwell would wake up soon.

"I will," the nurse says, softer now, and she places a comforting hand on Clint's arm. "He's stable, Agent Barton. That's a good sign. We'll keep you updated."

"I appreciate it," Clint says, giving her a final smile and a nod before striding towards the exit. He's got a thick folder digging into the small of his back, and a lot of reading to do.

Shaking his head, Clint huffs a little.

A fake mustache. Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

*

Clint doesn't really remember going to sleep, but he must have gotten tired of reading at some point, because he's in bed when he wakes up.

He isn't sure what wakes him at first, but as soon as the fog of sleep clears, he realizes he's not alone in the room. He jerks, immediately going for the gun he hides between the bed and his night stand, but before he can grab it, a hand shoots out and grips his wrist with surprising strength.

It's enough to throw Clint off his game, and before he can react, he's flipped onto his back and a heavy weight settles on his chest, hard knees and strong hands effectively pinning his arms to the bed. Clint thrashes and grunts with the exertion, ignoring all his aching body parts, but then a familiar voice says, "Shh, calm down, it's just me, shh."

Clint stops thrashing, breathes heavily, and blinks up at Phil.

It's hard to make out Phil's face in the darkness, but Clint sees the familiar half-smile anyway.

"What the _fuck_ are you doing?" Clint asks, voice low and barely above a whisper, even though he doesn't know why; they're the only ones in his apartment, and sound doesn't carry between apartments in his building.

"I heard what happened to your handler, and I wanted to see if you were okay," Phil says, and Clint thinks he hears something almost like concern in Phil's voice.

"My handler's in a hospital bed fighting for his life, and you wanted to see if _I_ was okay," Clint says in disbelief. He knows he sounds accusing, but suddenly, he's wide awake and angry--angry with Phil and all his secrets, angry with Sitwell for reasons he doesn't even know, and absolutely _furious_ with himself for letting this go on for as long as it has.

Phil's quiet for a long moment, letting Clint get himself under control again, and waits until Clint shrugs once, as best he can while still pinned down. Above him, Phil's face is somber. His eyes are nothing more than black pools in the darkness, a little blank, and for a moment Clint can't breathe.

"Don't think you have to worry about me," Clint says, not bothering to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

"Yes I do. You don't know what you're getting into," Phil warns, but somehow, it doesn't sound like a threat. Nothing Phil ever says to Clint sounds like a threat. "You don't know who you're dealing with."

Clint bites his lip and considers. When he speaks, he makes sure his voice is steady and confident. "Phillip J. Coulson. Former Army Ranger. The first documented kill attributed to you was ten years ago, in Paris. You're one of SHIELD's most wanted, and have largely escaped capture because nobody can prove a goddamn thing, and very few people know what you look like. If I remember right, you prefer the term 'gun for hire,' but let's be real here: you're an assassin."

Phil just looks at him when Clint stops talking, and for a long, tense moment, Clint holds his breath, waiting. Phil has the upper hand. It wouldn't take much for him to simply shift his grip, move his hands to Clint's neck, and squeeze. Clint braces himself for it. He's ready for a fight. There's a sour feeling at the back of his throat, and he recognizes that he doesn't _want_ to fight Phil. He will, though, if he has to. He will, to survive.

But Phil doesn't attack him.

"Why haven't you brought this information to your superiors?"

Clint swallows. "I did. They're looking into you as we speak. Fuck, for all I know they could already be on your tail."

"I wish you wouldn't lie to me," Phil says, and this time he sounds sad. He's not even bothering trying to hide it. Either that, or he's an excellent liar. Clint's not sure which he hopes it is.

"I wish I'd never met you," Clint says.

"Lying again," Phil says, his half smile returning to his face.

It's not until the pressure on his wrists suddenly lets up that Clint realizes he's stopped straining against Phil's grip. For a split second, he considers surging upwards, throwing Phil off the bed, and going for his gun again, but his moment comes and goes, and neither of them move. Phil's weight is steady and heavy on Clint's chest, and his suit doesn't have a waistcoat today. It's too dark to really make out much detail, so Clint reaches up, can't help himself, to run a hand over the fabric that covers Phil's chest.

Suddenly he's upset again, bitterness settling in his chest and fresh anger simmering under the surface of his skin.

"Why do you keep coming back here?" Clint asks, baring his teeth and trying to sound intimidating, but failing miserably.

Phil doesn't answer. Instead he leans forward and then slides down Clint's body until he's practically lying on top of him, nose almost touching Clint's. Clint can feel Phil's breath on his face, and he has to close his eyes, feeling far too exposed and ashamed. His dick has been hard since around the time he realized who was sitting on him, and he knows Phil can feel it through his suit pants.

Phil kisses Clint sweetly, which makes Clint's head spin and his body tingle. This isn't how they do things, and the realization that there's _a way they do things_ makes a new wave of shame roll through him. Still, with kisses like this, he holds his breath and waits for a punchline that he suspects will never come, because Phil's being tentative and careful, and it's unexpected.

"Phil," Clint says, and it comes out in a whisper. Phil pauses, lips still touching Clint's, but not moving. "Phil, what are," _we_ , he doesn't say, "you doing?"

Again, Phil doesn't respond, but after a moment, he kisses Clint again, with more vigor now. The kisses deepen, and Clint's arms come up around Phil almost by reflex, hugging him closer and _clinging_ to him.

It's not like Clint knows Phil, not really, probably not even at all, but he still can't shake the feeling that something's off about Phil. He's tender and tentative, and then desperate and hot, and it's not at all the calm and confident man that Clint remembers. Clint wonders if this is who Phil is underneath the polished surface. When they roll over in bed, Clint suddenly on top, Phil lets out a groan that sounds so needy, Clint can't decide if he likes this version of Phil better or worse than the other version--the swanky and put-together version.

Clint doesn't protest when Phil pulls at his t-shirt, tugging it up and over his head, and he tries not to think too hard about things as he pushes himself up so he can squirm out of his pajama pants and boxer shorts. Being completely bare-ass naked, pressed up against Phil's expensive suit, should feel weird, but somehow it doesn't.

It feels a little bit like loss when Phil pushes Clint off him before climbing off the bed, and for a dizzying moment Clint thinks that maybe Phil's changed his mind--maybe he doesn't want to do this after all? And that's nearly enough to send him into full-blown panic, because if Phil rejects him right now, he'll have to take a long, hard look at himself and his choices, and he's not ready for that. Not yet.

But Phil doesn't leave. He stands next to the bed and undresses, not slowly, but certainly not in a rush, either. His eyes never leave Clint, and there's a different sort of tension in the air. Clint watches as Phil gets naked, and then reaches for him, not pulling him back onto the bed right away, but simply touching. He intentionally avoids Phil's cock, jutting out from between his legs. Instead, Clint runs his hand over Phil's stomach and hips, up towards his chest, and back again.

Phil regards him for a few more seconds before crawling back onto the bed. His movements are as smooth as ever, but there's a minute trembling in his hands that Clint doesn't miss, and Clint shuts his eyes for a moment and tells himself firmly that it isn't significant. It doesn't _mean_ anything.

He pulls Phil to him, probably harsher than Phil expected, and when they kiss again it's raw and deep. Emotions threaten to burst out of Clint, and he pushes them down hard, focuses instead on pouring everything he is into Phil.

"Hey," Clint says, "hey," rolling them so he's on top again, before pulling out of the kiss completely and reaching over to the nightstand. For a moment, Phil's entire body tenses, but he relaxes again when Clint comes up with lube instead of a weapon. Clint's sloppy as he gets his fingers slick, but Phil doesn't seem to mind, not even when some of it spills onto his chest, smearing over Phil's skin by his right arm. He shifts underneath Clint, to create a little bit of space between their bodies, but Clint is aiming for more than a handjob, and reaches behind himself instead.

The first press of his finger inside himself makes his heart skip a beat, both from the sensation and from the anticipation that immediately rises in his gut.

Phil doesn't gasp in surprise when he realizes what Clint is doing, but it looks like it's a near thing. He stares up at Clint, as close to stunned as Clint has ever seen him, and it makes something twist in his chest, sour and hurtful, because goddammit. This _does_ mean something, and not just to Clint.

"Shut up," Clint says.

Phil leans up, kisses along Clint's jaw and runs one hand down the crack of Clint's ass, exhaling harshly when he finds where Clint's got a finger buried in himself.

"Shut up," Clint repeats, well aware that Phil hasn't actually said anything, but Clint still can't take it. He prepares himself as quickly as he can, and Phil doesn't say a word. He just keeps pressing unusually gentle kisses to Clint's skin, hands roaming over Clint's body. When Clint pushes up, hovers over Phil and looks down at him from under hooded eyes, one of Phil's hands immediately finds Clint's cock and strokes it, slowly, firmly.

Phil's face as Clint sinks down on his dick makes Clint's entire body ache. He feels like he can't get enough air into his lungs. He wants to memorize Phil's face, lock it away forever, and fuck, he cannot seem to shake the feeling that _this means something_!

When he's fully seated on Phil's cock, Clint pauses and holds still, letting them both adjust for a moment. Phil's still stroking Clint, and there's something in his eyes that Clint doesn't want to examine too closely.

"This is going to end badly," Phil says quietly into the darkness, and Clint gets the feeling he's not talking about the sex. "You know that, right?"

Clint blinks and swallows, and his eyes are suddenly stinging. "I know," he admits. He doesn't know _how_ this will end, but he knows it won't be pretty.

*

Clint wakes slowly, the sunlight filtering in through his blinds telling him it's late morning already. Sitwell's the first and only handler Clint's worked with who's called to bitch about him being late, and despite still being groggy with sleep, Clint feels bitter that there is no chance he'll get a call from Sitwell this morning.

He's alone in bed, as was to be expected. There's an ache in his ass that makes him vaguely wistful and a lot shameful, but he refuses to think about it. Instead he skips the shower, opting for scrubbing at his skin with a damp washcloth, just enough to get the physical evidence of Phil's presence off his body. Afterwards, he drinks his morning coffee at the kitchen counter, staring at the cupboards and trying not to think about anything. There's hurt in his belly he doesn't want to acknowledge, and he briefly wonders what Phil is doing.

New waves of guilt slam into him, and Clint downs the rest of his cup and rinses it out before putting it back in the cupboard. He was planning on going through Sitwell's e-mails first thing in the morning, but for some reason, Clint suddenly needs to see him instead. It's possible--probable, even--that it's guilt driving him, but before he can think too hard about it, Clint gets in a cab to the hospital, not having the patience for the subway crowds.

The hospital looks and smells the same as last time Clint was there, the night before--same as always--but when Clint gets onto Sitwell's floor, his step falters in surprise. There are several armed agents lined up along the walls, all guarding the way down to a specific room, with two extra agents stationed out front. 

"What the hell?" Clint asks into the air, and the agent closest to him tilts his head.

"Agent Barton," Clint explains, holding up his badge.

"Ah, I see. I'm Agent Vasquez," the gun-toting agent says before nodding once and jerking his head sideways.

"Agent May is awake," he explains. "Director Hill is in with her now."

Clint's eyes nearly bug out of his head, but he tries to keep most of his reaction under control. The temptation to go see how the interrogation is going is very strong, but at the same time he remembers Phil in his bed last night, Phil above him and below him and inside of him, and shame rises in his throat. He doesn't think he can face Hill right now, not with Sitwell still in critical condition and the ghost of Phil's lips on his skin.

Clamping down on his own self-loathing, Clint nods. "Thanks, Agent."

He doesn't have the authority to ask to be kept updated, so Clint heads to Sitwell's room instead, where things don't appear to have changed much since last night.

Sitwell's still and pale in bed, chest slowly rising and falling under the sounds of the machines surrounding him. The fact that he's breathing calms Clint, and he doesn't let himself think that Sitwell might not be who Clint thought. In here, Clint thinks, Sitwell's his handler, and that's all that matters at the moment.

Clint doesn't know how long he's allowed to stay, but in the end he decides he doesn't care, and he sits down in the only chair in the room, hard and uncomfortable, as he tries to get his thoughts and guilt under control.

When a nurse enters the room and starts adjusting monitors and machines, Clint sits up straight, pushing himself out of the slump he's slid into, and clears his throat. "Hey, uh, sorry, I know I'm probably not supposed to be in here, I just--"

She turns to look at him, and Clint stops abruptly. Underneath the black hair, styled in a sleek bob, and thick-rimmed glasses, the Black Widow's eyes are unmistakable.

Clint's out of his chair in a flash, crowding her up against the wall and glancing at the door to make sure it's closed. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Twitchy," she remarks. "I came to warn you. You're in deep shit, Barton."

"No kidding," Clint hisses. "What do you know about it? And why the fuck do you care, anyway?"

"Dead men can't pay me," she says, but her smirk is lacking something that Clint can't quite identify. "I found something. Not sure what. Whoever took that drive, Clint? They're powerful. The kind of powerful that comes with eyes and ears everywhere. The kind of power that's only accumulated over a long, long time."

Clint frowns. "You said days. It hasn't even been eighteen hours."

"I know," Natasha says as she pulls a familiar-looking drive out of the pocket of her scrubs.

For a moment, Clint's stunned, but then he snatches it out of her hands, noticing absently that she lets him. "Jesus. Jesus, did you have this the whole time, or what?"

She shakes her head, a wary look in her eyes. "I'd barely started asking questions, and contacts--long established, valuable contacts--started turning on me left and right. I went to Virginia last night, to talk to someone I know. I might've even called him a friend once. This? I pulled it out of the wreckage of his house--after he blew it up, and himself along with it, in an attempt to get rid of me."

Clint automatically looks her over; no scrapes or bruises that he can see, but who the hell knows what she's concealing. She's always been good at hiding what she doesn't want anyone else to see, and in their--in _her_ \--line of work, injuries are a weakness in more ways than one. She wouldn't want them known.

"Since then," Natasha continues, "there's been four more attempts on my life."

Clint blinks. "It hasn't even been _eighteen hours_ ," he repeats insistently, dumbly, and she looks like she's resisting the urge to smack him upside the head.

"Take that drive," Natasha says seriously. "Take it, and run. And stay the fuck away from me. I need to go lay low for a while."

Clint stares at the drive. It's identical to the fake one he'd retrieved in Minnesota, but it seems so small in his hand.

"What the fuck is _on_ this thing," he mutters. He knows it contains a list of programmers, but whatever they were working on is looking like a bigger and bigger deal.

"I'm starting to think I'm better off not knowing," she says dryly.

"Can you find out, though?" Clint asks. "You're good with computers and stuff."

Her expression softens minutely, and one eyebrow arches slightly upwards. "Computers and stuff," she repeats, faint amusement in her voice before she gets serious again. "It's not a question of _can_ , Barton. It's a question of _will_. And I won't."

For a brief moment Clint considers begging for help. He feels alone and out of his depth, and with the Black Widow here, so close, it's so much like old times that he suddenly misses it. Misses _them_ , and so badly that he feels like he can't breathe with it. What they had was never real trust, he thinks, but it was unique, and they were _good_ together.

But he also understands her need to stay safe and stay off the radar, and this has clearly gotten bigger than she's comfortable with.

"I understand," he tells her truthfully, even though he wishes he didn't. "I'll see that you get your money."

"Thanks," the Black Widow says, and she looks like she's about to leave, when she suddenly narrows her eyes at him. "Barton. Be careful, okay?"

It sounds almost like concern, and Clint feels oddly choked up about it.

"Ever considered going straight?" he asks, only half serious, forcing a weak attempt at a laugh.

Her smile changes a little, turns more genuine, as she puts a hand carefully on his cheek. "Considered," she says.

Then she's gone.

Clint looks down at the drive in his hand again, and ponders his next step.

"Old school spy stuff, huh?" Clint asks the air, and then considers.

It's not difficult to pull the insole out of his boot. He doesn't have any tools, so it's a little more difficult to dig out a piece of the actual sole, but in the end he manages with a pen he finds in Sitwell's night stand, and he shoves the drive in the little groove he makes. When he puts the insole back in place, he can't even feel it. It's not half bad, if he says so himself.

Satisfied, Clint laces his boot back up, straightening to look at Sitwell's prone form.

"This better provide some fucking answers," he tells Sitwell. "And if those answers involve some bad shit about you, I'm going to be so fucking angry, sir."

Sitwell, naturally, doesn't respond.

*

Clint's heading out of Sitwell's hospital room when Hill's voice stops him in his tracks.

"Agent Barton?"

Clint silently curses his luck before turning to face her. She strides down the hospital corridor like she owns it, and Clint both admires and fears her.

"Director Hill," he mumbles in greeting. Her face is set in a hard expression, but it doesn't appear to be aimed at him, so that's something at least.

"What are you doing here?"

"Came by to see Agent Sitwell," Clint answers honestly. "Heard Agent May's awake."

"She is," Hill confirms, eyes narrowing ever so slightly. Clint wonders if she saw Natasha leave Sitwell's room. He also wonders if Hill has developed psychic powers and is presently busy reading his mind, but he's always wondering that.

"What'd she say?" Clint asks, when Hill's intense stare becomes too much.

Hill looks hard at Clint for a few more seconds, as if she's trying to suss out any underlying reasons he might be asking, before she relaxes and shrugs. "Said she didn't do it. Anything beyond that is classified for the time being."

Clint swallows, not sure what to believe anymore.

"We're transferring them both to our medical facility at the Cube," Hill continues, hands clasped behind her back. "I'm keeping them both in custody for now, and I'd like to keep a closer eye on them."

"Sure, yeah," Clint says, nodding. "I understand."

Hill's eyes narrow a little again, and Clint gestures vaguely. "Well, I'm gonna head out, so, uh--"

"Agent Barton, is everything all right?"

It's not a question Clint anticipated, and it gives him pause. Hill looks almost--concerned?

"Am _I_ all right?" Clint asks dumbly, wondering if he looks as pale as he feels. He goes for sarcasm, because that's always been a reliable defense mechanism for him. "Well, I'm not unconscious in a hospital bed, ma'am, which puts me ahead in my book."

Hill stares at him for a scarily long time again before putting a hand on his shoulder. Clint does his best not to startle at the contact; he doesn't think Hill has touched him like this--just as a friendly gesture, a source of comfort, a way of telling him she's got his back--since maybe the year she first recruited him.

"If there's something you can't tell me right now," Hill says, "I trust I won't be kept in the dark much longer."

Hill's voice is kind, but firm, and the implication is clear: Clint can't keep things from her forever, and sooner or later her patience will run out.

Clint swallows again. He wants to come clean. He wants to tell her everything. But right now he doesn't know exactly who to trust, and he doesn't know what's on the drive, and he definitely doesn't know what Hill's reaction to any of this will be. And if Clint's completely honest with himself, he's scared. He knows he's fucked up colossally, making a bad situation worse by continuing to let Phil into his bed (life) over and over, but at the same time, Clint's always felt the need, whether driven by fear or otherwise, to clean up his own messes.

"There are things happening right now," Hill goes on, carefully emphasizing each word. "I may not know what, but I do know that this is a bad time to be keeping secrets."

Clint can only manage a miniscule nod.

"I'll," he says, and then stutters for a moment, wanting to let her know that he's heard her loud and clear, without actually giving anything away. "I'll--I know," is what he eventually settles on.

Hill doesn't say anything further, she just nods sharply at him and spins on her heels, gesturing to the armed agents standing further down the hallway. "All right, let's get this show on the road."

*

Once he leaves the hospital, Clint keeps an eye out for snipers or suspicious individuals as he hails a cab; this is not cargo he will risk carrying on the subway. If there's already been several attempts on Natasha's life, odds are whoever's chasing her down isn't far behind. Clint's main hope is that it'll take the unknown Bad Guys a little while to realize that she's handed the drive off, and that by then, he'll have SHIELD at his back.

Chewing absentmindedly on a nail, Clint watches the city go by, and wonders again how the interrogation of Melinda May is going. He's not so deep in thought, however, that he doesn't notice when the cab turns right instead of left, and he frowns. 

 

"Can you even get to the bridge this way?"

He's barely gotten the words out before the driver twists around in his seat, gun muzzle coming up to point directly at Clint through the cab's partition.

Reacting on instinct, Clint dodges to the side, squeezing himself down onto the floor of the cab and twitching as the shots ring out above him--fuck, Clint hopes he didn't hit anyone in the car behind them--and plexiglass rains down on him. The car lurches to the left and then to the right as the driver corrects, and there are a lot of brakes screeching around them.

Clint's immediately on autopilot, every part of his body that is a trained assassin, a SHIELD agent, and a survivor coming out all at once, and while the driver is still trying to correct the car, Clint leaps upwards and lunges at the shattered partition, getting one strong arm through and into the front seat. His fingers close around the driver's wrist, the one holding the gun, and Clint squeezes as hard as he can, and then _pulls_.

The gun slips from the driver's hand, but Clint's actions also pulls the steering wheel sharply to the right--and then the whole world turns upside down as the car rolls.

All Clint registers is the ringing in his ears, the crunch of cars hitting other cars, and the harsh jolts as he's thrown around the back seat. It seems to go on forever, but probably doesn't last more than a couple of seconds. When the car settles, thankfully the right way up, Clint gingerly brings up a hand to touch his forehead. It comes away bloody.

"Ow," he mumbles.

From the front seat, there's a groan and the sound of shattered glass shifting as the driver starts getting up.

Clint has to move; he knows that. It's just a little hard to get his body to cooperate immediately.

Fear and instinct still drive him though, and he manages to get the car door open, using his entire body weight against it.

The street is in chaos. There are two other wrecked cars nearby, and traffic around them has stopped and is in the process of getting completely backed up. A few onlookers have started trying to help, but Clint shakes their hands off.

"No," he tries telling them, "no, no, I--"

"Is he in shock?" a woman's voice says.

"Sir," someone else says, "sir, you should probably sit down. An ambulance is on the way."

Get them away, Clint has to get these people away--

The shot ringing out causes people to scream and scramble for cover, and Clint does the same, hoping to hell he's not causing innocent people to get hurt, here.

"Fuck!" the taxi driver yells, staggering out of the car with his gun raised and aimed in Clint's direction. There are pieces of car wreckage strewn all around, so Clint grabs the first thing he finds--a piece of a bumper, maybe?--and throws it. It bounces off the driver's head, and he falls backwards, unconscious.

"Jesus," Clint breathes, legs wobbly and knees trying to give out underneath him. What the hell? Is this what Phil was talking about? Has whoever's hunting him decided that he's better off dead? Or is this about the drive? Does whoever's after it know that he has it now?

He doesn't have time to dwell on it, because another shot rings out, and a burning pain licks up his arm. A flesh wound, Clint thinks, a through and through, he can get through this, he can--

The next shot, from a different angle, Clint notices, ricochets off the ground right next to him, and Clint doesn't have a choice anymore, he only has his instincts. Cursing loudly, he takes off.

Clint runs, legs pumping, brain frantically trying to come up with an exit strategy. He misses his bow in his hands like a limb, and Clint's never been the best on the ground. Unfortunately, there's nowhere to go, and he can hear people gasp as he sprints by. Two shots from two different angles, so at least two attackers. His attackers aren't firing on him again yet, but he suspects it's only a matter of time. He has to draw them away from the people, away from the sidewalks and the cars.

Rounding a corner, Clint spies the entrance to the 23rd Street station, and makes a snap decision. He doesn't have a whole lot of other places to go. As he descends the stairs two at a time, he nearly bowls over several people, but he can't stop, and he can't be careful--not now. Not when he doesn't know what his attackers will do. The only thing that matters is staying alive and keeping the drive safe.

Behind him, someone calls out, "Hey!" before there's a strangled sound, and Clint doesn't even have to look to know he's being followed.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Clint calls out as he weaves through people, clipping a few shoulders as he goes, and stumbling as he makes his way out onto the platform. "Please, no train," he mutters as he leaps onto the tracks, ignoring the gasps behind him.

His footsteps and the sound of his own breathing get louder in Clint's ears as he's swallowed by the darkness of the tunnel, but it also makes it easier to hear the grunts as his followers jump off the platform behind him, and the heavy clomping of their boots. By the sounds of it, Clint was spot on when he figured there to be two attackers.

The sound of gunshots echoes off the tunnel walls, and Clint ducks on instinct, hoping neither gunman has his vision. He zig-zags as best he can, hoping he'll come to a track junction sooner rather than later. Another shot rings out, and this time the bullet hits so close to Clint's head that he can feel the spray of concrete as it ricochets off the wall. "Stop, you fucker!" someone calls out behind him, and Clint grits his teeth and wishes he had his bow. He's never leaving home without a projectile weapon again.

There's a crumpled soda can up ahead, and Clint scoops it up and spins for a split second, eyes immediately finding his target even in the dark. He's running again almost before he's completed his throw, so he doesn't see it, but he does hear the satisfying sound of the can hitting human flesh, and the pained grunt that accompanies it.

It doesn't seem to have done anything but cause the man to stumble, though, and there's still one pair of heavy footsteps following him. Clint's lungs are burning and his head is pounding, and he wonders if he should add more cardio to his workout routine. He still feels bruised and battered from not only his recent fights, but also from the last few weeks in general, so maybe that's why he doesn't see the shadows in the dark ahead of him until it's almost too late.

There's two of them, emerging out of the darkness like fucking ninjas or something, and Clint yelps--he can't help it--and then, unable to take cover or run backwards, he goes into an immediate slide, catching one of the new goons in the shin.

"Ow, fuck!" an angry voice yells. "Not us, _them_!"

Clint leaps back onto his feet at the same time as more gunfire rings out, but the new guys are not shooting at him, he realizes: They're shooting at Clint's followers.

The two goons, faintly illuminated by the muzzle flashes, fire back, and Clint scrambles further into the tunnel. The two ninjas are clad all in black, ski masks and all, and it's eerily reminiscent of the man who broke into Clint's apartment. Clint's not sure who any of these guys are, or which ones, if any, of them work for the people Phil had warned him about, but he has no plans to stick around and find out!

One follower makes a strangled sound and goes down like a sack of potatoes, and the other follows only a few seconds later.

"Hey!" a voice shouts after Clint, but Clint's not stopping. A split second later, he's bodily tackled to the ground, and wouldn't it just figure that his would-be saviors also seem to want him for something? They go down in a tangle of limbs, and Clint's head hits the tracks hard. He sees light spots in his vision, but still manages to heave the guy off him, immediately lashing out with a kick that sends the other man flying. There's a grunt as the guy gets the air knocked out of him, and Clint fights the dizziness and nausea rolling over him, climbing to his feet again.

"Stop him!" the guy on the ground wheezes, and Clint has a brief moment to think, _Oh shit, there was one mo--_

Something small hits his neck and he feels like he's falling, before he's not aware of anything anymore.

*

Clint swims back into consciousness with the sound of chuckling in his ears.

"You didn't tell me he was semi-competent," a voice says, sounding very amused, and Clint gets the distinct feeling they're talking about him.

"Fuck you, I'm very competent," Clint mutters, words slurring a bit as he blinks his eyes open.

More chuckling. The world is wobbly, blurry, coming back to him in splotches, and when his sight stabilizes, Phil's frowning face is the first thing he sees.

"I don't think it's funny," Phil says, but he's not talking to Clint.

Turning his head, Clint realizes a few things: One, his boots are still on his feet, thank god. Two, he's lying on a cot in a dank room that looks like it's in an underground bunker or something, and someone's pulled a blanket over him. Three, there's a bandage wrapped around his left bicep where he got shot, which means someone actually gives a shit about his wellbeing. And four, there's an intimidating black dude with an eye patch sitting across from Phil.

"The fuck?"

"Good to see you awake, Agent Barton," Eye Patch says. "You had Phil worried."

"Shut up," Phil insists, sounding oddly petulant.

"Where the fuck am I?" Clint asks, attempting to sit up and quickly deciding that's a _terrible_ idea when bile rises in his throat and his head throbs. And that's not even taking into account the pain in his arm as his bicep flexes. Right. Best stay down for a little while, until he feels better.

"Agent Barton," Eye Patch says. The rickety chair he's on creaks dangerously as he leans back, but he seems completely unconcerned. "My name is Nick Fury. I'm really sorry about all this, but I'm afraid it was for your own good."

Clint frowns a little. He feels like he's seen this guy before, but he can't place it at the moment. His head's spinning.

"Now, Phil here says he trusts you, so that means, by extension, I trust you. We would have approached you in a more--pleasant manner, but since things appeared to be escalating, we found it in our best interests to bring you in for a little chat sooner rather than later."

Clint's confused. "Wait," he says, bringing up his uninjured arm so he can rub two fingers against his temple. "Who are you? What the fuck did I stumble upon?" He squints at Phil. "Your name _really_ is Phil?"

Phil's face changes color a little, not quite a blush, but almost. "You knew that already."

Clint sighs and briefly closes his eyes. "Who the fuck knows, everything's all cloak and dagger with people like you, I'm sure--other people I know," he says, quickly omitting his connection to the Black Widow, "also have very convincing paper trails with fake names."

"I told you my name was Phil, though, long before you dug up that info, which, by the way, I thought I'd buried. Thank you."

"Told you I'm competent," Clint mutters. "Also, you could have been lying."

When he opens his eyes again, Phil looks vaguely hurt. "I never lied to you, Clint."

Clint swallows and doesn't know what to say to that. He's still not sure he believes it. Then again, he's recovering from being shot and knocked unconscious. Phil will simply have to deal with the fact that Clint's currently not feeling particularly trusting.

"This is very touching and all," the guy, Fury, says, before standing up. "But we've got more pressing matters."

Standing, Fury makes for an even more intimidating presence, practically towering over Clint's little cot. His eye seems to see right through Clint, as he stares, grimly.

"Agent Barton, have you heard of an organization called Hydra?"

Clint blinks and tries to make his brain work; it still feels a little bit like someone stuck it in a cement mixer for a while.

"Hydra--the balls-crazy magic Nazi group that Captain America kicked the crap out of in World War II?"

Phil looks like he wants to say something really long and complicated, but he settles on, "I, err, that's--yeah."

For some reason that makes Fury snort, but then the grim look is back on his face. "Unfortunately, it would appear that not only is Hydra alive and well, but we have good reason to believe that they've infiltrated one of our top intelligence agencies."

Clint thinks he must have a concussion, because he can't be hearing this right.

"So--SHIELD?" he asks, feeling like he's stepped into the Twilight Zone.

Fury nods. "And we better hope it stops there. Haven't yet found any indication they're in with the CIA or NSA, but who the fuck knows."

Clint takes a deep breath, then another, and holds the third one until his heart rate picks up. "You're fucking with me," he eventually says, exhaling hard. "Who the fuck are you guys?"

Fury looks at Phil, eyebrow arching up above the eyepatch. Phil, in turn, makes a complicated face that Clint lacks the focus to decipher right at the moment. "You wanna start this?" Fury says.

The corners of Phil's mouth tug down just a little bit, before he clears his throat and nods. Scooting his chair closer to Clint's cot, he leans forward on his knees and looks--

Clint stares. Now that his complete attention is on Phil, he can see the dark circles under Phil's eyes, how his face is a little leaner, how his brow seems to be set in a permanent frown. His body is slumped forward, more relaxed than Clint's ever seen, but in a dejected way that makes Clint's whole chest ache. It's by far the most human he's seen Phil, and it makes him wary.

"Nick Fury and I, we--" Phil starts, then tries again, words slow and hesitant, as if he's still struggling with how to tell his story. "My name is Phil Coulson. I was stationed right outside of DC when I got the news that Nick had died."

Clint glances at Fury. "Doesn't seem like it took."

Phil chuckles, but it's hollow. "We've been friends forever. I mourned him, started to move on, when out of the blue one day I get a message, hidden in my fucking yoghurt, if you can believe it. It said Nick was alive, and that he didn't die in combat, but that he was set up. Betrayed."

Fury scoffs faintly, and shakes his head, eyes downcast, as he takes over the storytelling. "All I did was ask one damn question. It wasn't even complicated. I made small talk during the shift change at the gate. Guy comes up, new to the base, I didn't know him. He's curt with me, but it was 4 a.m. and anyone can be a little cranky at that hour. Then a big-ass truck rolls up, and the guy waves 'em through, so I say, _So where's this going?_ That was all."

Clint manages to hold up a hand. "Wait, so--you got killed over small talk?" Clint feels something like sympathy roll through him, despite the fact that this _could_ be the greatest tall tale he's ever heard.

"Ain't that something," Fury says bitterly.

"This is a fucking joke," Clint mumbles.

"Yeah, and as you can tell, I'm having a real big laugh about it," Fury snaps, and it startles Clint enough to pay proper attention again. Apparently, getting killed seems to be somewhat of a sore spot for this guy.

"Anyway," Fury says, sighing heavily. "Anyway. I wake up buried in a shallow as fuck, shitty-ass grave. I can only be grateful that whoever was sent to take care of business apparently knows fuck-all about burying a body. So I pull myself out, and get the fuck out of Dodge. I manage to find a place to recover." Fury's face turns, if possible, even more sour, brow knitting together in a scowl. "Took a while." He looks pointedly at Clint, head tilted so the eye patch is directly in Clint's line of sight. "Some parts of me recovered better than others."

Clint swallows and doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't say anything at all.

"When I got back on my feet, I set about finding out what the fuck was going on," Fury says, before looking to Phil, clearly expecting him to continue the story again.

"The truck he was asking about contained weapons," Phil explains. "On the surface everything looked normal. But when I got the message from Nick, I started digging a bit, and I found a lot of records that didn't match. A lot of paperwork with suspicious signatures. Eventually, it became clear that I was making myself a target, and right about the time we realized that this was big, way bigger than corrupt soldiers, I decided to step off the map too."

"All right, say I believe you," Clint says suspiciously. "Why do you want me onboard now? What the fuck can I do?"

Phil and Fury exchange a glance and seem to have an entire conversation with only their eyes in that tiny little second. Clint's briefly envious of their close relationship, but the moment passes, and Phil and Fury both turn to look at Clint with intense and serious eyes.

"Agent Barton," Fury says, "what do you know about your handler--Jasper Sitwell?"

Clint resists the urge to slam his head into the nearest hard surface. He's in enough pain; he doesn't need to add to it.

"You think he's Hydra."

"We need you to get to him," Phil says.

"Didn't seem like you had any issues waltzing into the hospital to pay him a visit," Clint grumbles, and Phil's lips twitch, just a little bit.

"This is different. We need you to talk to him when he wakes up. And I was actually in the hospital to check up on our contact in SHIELD."

"Wait, your contact in SHIELD?" Clint's eyes narrow. "This would be the same contact that told you about the contents of the flash drive?" Phil nods, and understanding immediately dawns on Clint.

"Melinda May." Clint's brain is about to go into overload. "Of fucking course it's Melinda May," he mutters, and if he'd been standing up he would have had to sit down right about now. His entire life is bullshit, Clint decides. "She's our leak, except she was leaking information to _you_. That's why you think Sitwell's Hydra. They shot each other." Resisting the urge to scrub a hand over his face, Clint sighs. "What do you need me to do?"

"Find out if he really is Hydra," Phil says. "And get the real list of the programmers that was supposed to be on that flash drive. If you didn't hide it from me, Hydra got to it first, and they've hidden it for a reason. There's something there that they don't want anyone to find."

The list.

"What makes you think they haven't destroyed it already?" Clint asks, face carefully blank.

Phil's nose crinkles the tiniest bit. "They kept it at their facility in Minnesota for a reason. Whatever they've got on there, it's important to them.”

Clint doesn't immediately give anything away, quickly running over his options in his head. This has gotten way out of hand, and the feeling that he's in way over his head is only growing stronger--but at the same time, he needs help. He has to put his trust in _someone_ , and Phil still hasn't lied to him as far as he can tell. It's probably the safest bet. What the fuck does he have to lose?

"That list," Clint says carefully, watching as both Phil and Fury lean forward a little, anticipation clearly written on their faces. "I have it."

For several long moments, Phil and Fury stare at him, wide-eyed and stunned. Fury's the first one to break, a wide smile spreading across his face.

"I'll be damned," Fury says, sounding very amused. "You were right, Cheese."

Clint raises an eyebrow at Phil. "Cheese?"

Ignoring it, Phil asks, "Where is it?"

Clint gestures. "In my boot. Take out the insole."

Phil's lips twitch like he wants to laugh but is hiding it. Seeing it, Clint shrugs a little and smiles back. "Someone told me all this was very... old school spy stuff. I took a page out of their book."

Phil gently gets Clint’s boot off his foot, jostling him as little as possible, and he doesn't even make a face at being in such close proximity to Clint's stinky-ass socks. That thought makes Clint feel oddly fond, and he covers the smile that wants to spread across his face by shifting and turning it into a grimace of discomfort instead.

"Well," Phil says when he's got the drive, looking at it and then at Fury, an odd expression of expectation on his face. "Want me to call her?"

Fury sighs and rolls his eye. "Fine. Yes. You can call her."

Clint frowns. "Who?"

Phil's only response is a smile.

*

The next time Clint wakes up, it's to the sound of a door opening, and Phil's voice saying, insistently, "Skye-- _Skye_!"

Eyes blinking open just in time to see a young brunette coming to a stop at his bedside, Clint startles a little when she sticks a hand out at him and gives him a sunny grin. "Hi! You must be Clint. I'm Skye!"

"Skye!" Phil hisses as he rushes into the room, coming to an abrupt stop upon seeing that Clint's awake.

"Hi," Clint says, arching an eyebrow at Phil.

"Er, hi," Phil says, looking a little embarrassed, although Clint has no idea why. He's not about to object though; it's so unlike the suave and serious version of Phil he's used to seeing, and he finds it completely and utterly adorable. "Did you get some rest?"

Clint nods. "I did," he confirms. He can't be sure, of course, but it feels like he's only been asleep for an hour or two. After Phil had asked to call the mysterious _herher_ \--both Phil and Fury had left Clint alone to rest a little. Clint had briefly considered taking off before deciding that he'd given the drive to Phil, he'd made the decision to try to trust Phil, and so he might as well stick it out. It hadn't taken him more than a minute to fall asleep.

"So, Skye, huh?"

"That's the name, hacking's the game," she says, making finger guns at Clint.

"Please don't ever do or say that again," Phil groans, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Skye laughs, otherwise completely ignoring him. "So," she says, sitting down. She's carrying a big nylon bag, which she opens and immediately starts rummaging around in, pulling out two laptops and a whole mess of wires and plopping them down on the edge of Clint's cot. "How are you doing? I heard you got shot."

"It feels better already," Clint says dismissively, moving his arm and carefully pushing himself up into a sitting position. By the door, Phil takes a step forward as if he wants to help, maybe protest, but then he stops himself. Clint gives him another amused grin, and to his delight, the embarrassed look on Phil's face grows stronger.

"Look at you," Skye says, but she's not looking at Clint, she's looking at Phil. "All worried."

With a long-suffering sigh, Phil sits down in the other chair. "I'm fairly certain I told you not to do this in here."

"So sue me," Skye shrugs. "I wanted to meet Clint."

"Why?" Clint asks, although from the way Phil keeps narrowing his eyes warningly at Skye, he can sort of guess. Something in Clint's stomach is tingling, which is completely ridiculous. This is not the time.

Skye gives him an incredulous look. "Why? What do you mean, _why_? Because you're--"

Phil pointedly clears his throat, and Skye's mouth snaps shut.

Clint resists the urge to laugh.

"Because--you were the one who had the drive," Skye explains, in the least smooth save ever, even as she's hooking up laptops and various other electronics to a power strip hooked into a long extension cord coming from somewhere outside the room. "And oh boy," she continues sarcastically. "I love drives. This'll be super fun."

"Don't let her fool you," Phil says, rolling his eyes. "She loves this stuff."

"I do," Skye admits sheepishly, grinning at Clint. "Though a little less mortal peril would be nice."

Phil's mouth tightens around the corners, and he looks down. "Just do what you can, Skye. Please."

"Drive, please," she says, and Phil pulls it out of his inner pocket, tossing it to her. She catches it easily and plugs it into a box next to one of her laptops. On the first try, too, no flipping it back and forth to find the right way. Clint decides that she must be magic.

Carefully stretching, cataloguing every ache and pain as they shoot through him, Clint moves to get out of bed. "I think, uh, I think I need to use the bathroom," he says.

Phil's on his feet and by Clint's side in a second, supporting him as he stands up, and for a moment it almost bowls Clint over, having Phil so close to him again. He can smell the familiar scent of Phil's deodorant, and the fabric of Phil's suit feels comforting against the bare skin of his forearms.

"Careful," Phil says, an unexpected warmth in his voice. Clint's stomach does that tingling thing again.

Meeting Phil's eyes, Clint smiles carefully. "So was that you? In the tunnels?"

"Maybe," Phil admits, smiling carefully back. "Sorry to scare you."

"You didn't scare me," Clint lies.

"I have a bruise on my shin that says otherwise," Phil murmurs. He's so close to Clint now that Clint can feel his breath on his face.

"Get a room," Skye mumbles, eyes never leaving the screen, but she's grinning.

"I have a room," Clint points out. "There's a computer hacker in it."

"I'll help you to the bathroom," Phil says, before Skye can answer. Clint doesn't really think he needs the support, but he still leans closely against Phil as they make their way out of the room. Just as they reach the door, Phil gives Skye a glare over his shoulder, and Clint stifles his laughter and pretends he doesn't see it.

*

"So where are we?" Clint asks after he's used the bathroom, Phil waiting outside the whole time with a worried air hanging over him.

"Jersey," Phil answers, and Clint makes a face.

"Your secret base is in Jersey?"

"One of them," Phil chuckles. He seems content to let Clint walk on his own now that he's proven he can, although Clint kind of wants Phil close again. "Fury believes in contingency plans."

"What is this place?" Clint wonders, looking around. The hallways are dark and dank, and they're definitely underground.

"Old SSR hideout," Phil says, leading Clint into a larger room that's better lit. There's a couch with a surprisingly soft looking knit blanket thrown over one end, and a desk in the corner. Across the room, there's a big table stacked with maps and papers, and Fury's sitting at one end, talking on the phone with someone. "After the war," Phil explains, voice lowering a little so as not to disturb Fury, "the Strategic Scientific Reserve created a bunch of these bases. Several of them don't even exist in any paperwork anymore. They make for decent living quarters, though."

"Wait," Clint says, frowning. "The SSR--"

"The precursor to SHIELD," Phil confirms, nodding. "Although worth noting that the branches using these bases later became the CIA."

"Crazy," Clint mumbles. "I wonder how many bunkers like these there are around the country?"

"Try around the world," Phil says, smiling with barely contained glee. "I mean, these guys were doing covert ops at a whole other level."

"Excuse me," Fury says, glaring at them from the table. "Do I come into your room and disturb your phone calls? I don't think so."

"Sorry," Phil says, and gently nudges Clint's arm. "Come on."

He leads Clint through the room and down another short hallway, before opening a door at the end. "This is my, uh--" He cuts himself off as Clint steps inside.

The room is about the same size as the one Clint woke up in, but this one looks slightly more lived in. There's an actual bed in it--not a big bed, just a twin, but still, it's a real bed--and a desk in a corner. There are a few books stacked around, and a small rack with four or five suits hanging on it.

"Phil," Clint says, grinning back at where Phil's standing in the doorway. "Did you bring me to your room?"

"I didn't mean to imply--" Phil starts, stopping when Clint turns around and kisses him.

It's a short kiss. There's no tongue, Clint's lips must feel dry, and he knows he's got some solid stubble going that must scratch Phil's chin uncomfortably--but it still leaves Phil looking stunned and blinking a little owlishly at Clint when they pull apart.

"Sorry," Clint says, moving back a little. Words are suddenly very difficult. "Was I--I didn't mean to _assume_ anything, I just--I mean, I wasn't sure what we--what we're--what we were..."

"No," Phil says, blinking again. "No, that's--that was fine, it's all fine. It's good. I just..."

Clint's eyebrows climb upwards a little, and he stomps down on the treacherous little voice in his ear that tries to tell him to prepare for rejection.

"I'm a little worried about how you're feeling," Phil admits.

Oh. There's that tingling feeling in Clint's stomach again.

"You're worried about me," he repeats dumbly.

Phil shrugs a little. "I'm always worried about you." He says it easily, plainly, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

The tingling in Clint's stomach turns into a full-on flutter, and he couldn't hold back his smile if his life depended on it. It wasn't as if he was planning on jumping Phil right here and now; he's still hurting in places he didn't even realize he had, and they have bigger, more important things to worry about. Still, all his sore muscles and the lingering pain in his arm from the gunshot wound seem to fade under Phil's gaze, dim until they're almost nonexistent, and he carefully takes Phil's hand, fingers lacing together.

"This is," he says carefully, "without a doubt, the craziest fucking situation I've ever been in. And I've been in some pretty fucking crazy situations before, believe me."

An answering smile spreads across Phil's own face, and his fingers squeeze Clint's. "You get used to it."

*

As it turns out, hacking is nothing at all like the movies.

There's very little neon writing flashing across the screen, and Skye never once says shit like, _We're in_ , or _I need to get past this firewall_. Mostly, it's Skye typing and typing and typing for hours on end, and looking intermittently bored and gleeful.

Clint spends most of the day going over what Phil already knows about Hydra; the sparse documents he's managed to recover that contain proof of double agents. Unsurprisingly, for every document or piece of evidence showing a person's affiliation with Hydra, there's an accompanying death certificate or police report. A lot of people seem to be willing to die for Hydra's cause, and that scares Clint a little. Fanatics are always harder to deal with than run of the mill bad guys. Fanatics have _conviction_.

Beyond that, everything Phil and Fury have is circumstantial at best. Weapons schematics, computer programs with unknown functions, mission intel, all buried under layers and layers of dead ends. Money tied up in offshore accounts and fake holding companies. Finding concrete evidence of what Hydra is up to is proving near impossible, and the few things they have that could have led to something tangible, instead lead to dead bodies.

Clint rubs his eyes and hopes Skye gets into the drive, soon. It's becoming more and more obvious that whatever's on it is big. _Must_ be big.

"How long until they start getting worried at SHIELD?" Phil asks Clint. They're standing in the doorway of Clint's room, watching Skye work.

Clint shrugs a little. He'd finally gotten ahold of a watch, and he'd been asleep for longer than he'd thought. It's creeping up on late evening now, although the complete absence of windows in the bunker is throwing him off a little. "Being gone for a day probably isn't an issue. By daytime tomorrow, someone is bound to notice. After a day I'll be treated as a missing agent. After seven, I'll be treated as a hostile."

"Well, hopefully it won't take that long," Phil remarks.

"It's not so bad," Clint says, giving Phil a grin. "Being here with you. I'm not used to seeing this much of you. I think I like it."

"If it's too much, I could always mysteriously disappear again," Phil jokes.

"You know," Skye says, looking at them over the top of her screen. "This would go a lot faster if you guys would go somewhere else and flirt."

Phil makes a face at her. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you wanted to meet Clint."

"That was before I realized how nauseating you guys are around each other," she says pointedly.

Clint laughs and forces himself not to blush. Phil looks like he's doing the same, a confident little smile on his face, and even though Clint loves seeing these new sides of Phil--the dorky embarrassment, the quiet worry, the happiness--there's something comforting about seeing this suave personality back in place. The suit Phil's wearing today is charcoal gray, and his tie has little purple spots on it. Clint once again wonders if he'll injure himself further by dragging Phil back to his room and jumping him. He's starting to think it might be worth it.

"It's getting late," Phil says, looking from Skye to Clint and back again. "Why don't the two of you get some rest?"

"I'll rest when I've finished this," Skye says, not sounding sleepy in the least. Reaching into her bag, she pulls out a can of Red Bull, popping it open with a cheerful grin.

Phil rolls his eyes at her, and then looks expectantly at Clint.

"My bed's occupied," he says.

Phil opens his mouth to say something, but hesitates.

"You can sleep in his room," Skye supplies helpfully, causing Phil to give her another one of those glares he seems to have especially reserved for her.

"I was gonna say that," Phil says, carefully meeting Clint's eyes again. "I just didn't want you to think that I was--that I was, uh..."

"Don't worry," Clint says, batting his eyelashes ridiculously at Phil. "I'm sure my virtue is safe."

The banter seems to bring back Phil's confidence, and he smiles. "What virtue?"

"Ouch," Clint says, placing a hand over his chest as they head out of the room and down the hallway. "You wound me, Phil. I'm very virtuous, thank you."

"Shut up," Phil mutters, but he's still smiling.

Clint nudges Phil's elbow with his own, completely without thinking, and says, "Oh come on, you like me like this."

And Phil, not-an-assassin-after-all-Phil, secret-super-spy-Phil, turns startlingly honest eyes on Clint and says, easily and simply, "Yes, I do."


	4. Chapter 4

Skye breaks into the drive around noon the next day.

Phil and Clint are sitting in companionable silence on the couch, reading. And okay, they're reading old, stolen mission files from the NSA, trying to find anything that could indicate that any of the involved agents were secretly working for Hydra at the time, but still. Clint appreciates the domesticity of it. It feels--nice.

They both look up, however, when Skye enters the room, grinning widely and gesturing more than she has to. "Okay," she says, "Okay, okay!" She's looking a little manic and very hyped up on caffeine. Clint eyes her warily, leaning back a little. She smells of Red Bull. "I got it," she says, proudly.

Her hands shake as she holds out a few papers towards Phil, and he eyes her skeptically as he puts aside his folder in order to take the papers from her. "Did you sleep at all?"

"What's sleep?" she asks airily, running a hand through already tangled hair, gesturing with her other hand. "I'm fine. I'm fine. I'll sleep soon, I promise, but I got it. I got it. I'm pretty sure this is some kind of record. I'm the best, I swear, Coulson, you wouldn't _believe_ how well-guarded this shit was, okay, it came with an actual _self-destruct sequence_ , can you believe that shit, and to disable it--"

"Skye," Phil interrupts her gently. "Did you show this to Fury?"

She nods, her movements a little jerky. "I did. I did, and he said to give it to you."

Phil nods decisively. "All right, your job is done for now. Go lie down. Get some sleep. We'll wake you if we need you. Thank you."

"Okay," she says, looking half like she secretly wants to protest, and half relieved. "I'll probably bounce when I wake up though, just so you know."

"Skye," Phil says, giving her one of those kind, warm smiles that makes Clint think Phil's got everything under control. "You did an excellent job with this. Get some sleep, then go home."

"Sure thing, boss," she mumbles, eyelids already fluttering a little. "Later."

"Later," Phil says, watching her go. When she's disappeared, he scoots closer to Clint on the couch. Clint tries not to get too distracted by Phil's suit or the warmth of Phil's body, and instead focuses on the papers in front of them.

It's a printout of names, locations, coordinates and code names. Project Atlantis, Project Starbuck, Project Windswept, Project Insight, Project Gradient. Atlanta, Dallas, Portland, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City. Clint doesn't know what any of it means, and judging from the look on his face, neither does Phil. What they're really looking for, though, is listed under the header of Project Relic.

"These," Phil says, pointing. "These are the names."

"How do you know?" Clint asks, and Phil points to a specific name.

"This man, here, Ed Stein, he was the only lead we had. He washed up on the coast of France early last year." He smiles, a hopeful look on his face as his eyes drift to the coordinates listed by the project file.

"I wonder what's there," Clint says as he stares at the coordinates.

Phil grins a little. "Well, Nick and I are gonna go find out."

Clint considers for only a moment. "Can I come?"

Phil looks like he wants to protest for a second, narrowing his eyes. Clint's a good field operative, and it's not like Phil doesn't know that. Clint's valuable, even with one injured arm.

"How's your arm?" Phil asks, suspicion in his voice.

Clint flexes. "I'm good," he says, and it's not a lie, not really. It hurts, yes, but it's nothing that he can't deal with, and his stiff muscles have mostly recovered.

Phil's eyes narrow further.

"Honestly," Clint says. "Just give me a gun, and I'll be fine."

"I can do you one better than that," Fury says, striding into the room and plunking Clint's bow case down on the big table in the corner. "Heard you were good with a bow."

Clint blinks. "You went to my place and got my bow?"

Fury shrugs. "Someone had to. It's not like we can afford to turn down reliable help when it's offered. Right, Cheese?" He looks pointedly at Phil.

Clint gets off the couch and walks to the table, running one hand over his bow case in reverence. He's good with any sort of projectile weapon, true, but there's nothing like his bow. Nothing like the rush of letting the string go, of watching his arrow find its target.

"Got your quiver, too," Fury says. "The SHIELD issue one. I figure it's got a few extra toys we could use."

Clint gives Fury a look. "You know, one of these days, you guys are gonna tell me how the fuck you keep getting into my place."

Fury throws his head back and laughs. "Why would we tell you that?"

*

The coordinates apparently lead to the middle of nowhere, Virginia. The forest is thick and seems to go on forever, and after the long drive down, Clint's not exactly feeling at his perkiest. His arm is aching dully, but he's tested and retested, and he can--as he thought--draw his bow without issues, so he ignores the pain and follows Fury and Phil through the woods. They've all grown increasingly tense, none of them sure of what they'll find when they reach their destination, or if they'll even find anything at all.

Honestly, Clint half expects them to find nothing. The drive could be a dud, another fake, or they could simply be too late. Another dead end to add to Phil and Fury's little stack of non-evidence.

Suddenly, Fury stops, looks at his little handheld device, and nods. "Here."

Phil looks carefully around them, eyes scanning the trees and ground. "I don't see anything."

"We're in the right place," Fury says darkly.

It's Clint who spots it. "There," he says, pointing. It's hard to see, even for someone with Clint's vision, but he knows he's right. In three long strides, he's at the right spot on the ground, and he brushes aside some of the leaves and twigs and dirt to show a piece of metal in the ground. It's barely peeking out, tarnished and worn down by weather and time, but it's there.

"Good eyes," Fury comments.

"Is that...?" Phil asks.

"A handle," Fury confirms. "Start digging."

*

Forty minutes later, Clint stares at the access hatch they've uncovered.

"I think I've seen something like this on TV," he comments. "It didn't end well."

"Just cover our asses, will you?" Fury grumbles, checking his gun before putting a hand on the handle. "We good?"

"Yeah, yeah," Clint agrees, bringing his bow up at the ready. Fury's eye narrows, like he wants to make a comment--again--but in the end he doesn't say anything.

"Cheese?" Fury asks.

"Actually, I think I forgot my bottle opener," Phil says from next to Clint, smirking in a way Clint's never seen before, before holding up his semiautomatic. "Hey Nick, remember New Delhi?"

For some reason, both of the things Phil says to Fury makes Fury laugh. Clint blinks, because this is getting weirder and weirder, and also he's starting to feel massively like the proverbial third wheel, not understanding any of Phil and Fury's little in-jokes and shared history.

"If you're finished, Cheese?" Fury asks. He's stopped laughing now, but his face is still twisted in amusement. "I feel like you're giving away our element of surprise, here."

"What's the worst that could happen," Phil says with a shrug, and Fury, who'd been about to pull open the hatch, once again stops what he's doing.

"I can't fucking believe you'd jinx us like that," he accuses. "And in front of the new guy, too. What would Captain America say?"

Interestingly, Phil's cheeks turn a light shade of red, but that weird smirk on his face only becomes more obvious. "Hopefully something very dirty, sir," Phil replies, which makes Clint choke on air.

That doesn't sound like something Phil would say. For a moment, he just stares, confused, before something clicks in his brain, and he _gets it_. Clint remembers the fake name Phil used at the hotel that very first night, and the way he'd looked like he wanted to launch into a lecture the first time Clint had mentioned Hydra, and Clint wants to smack himself in the face.

"Oh my god," he says. It's vaguely stunned and reasonably quiet, but still enough to draw both Phil and Fury's attention.

"You're a Captain America fanboy," Clint accuses, lifting one finger off the grip of his bow so he can point it at Phil.

Phil's face grows redder, and Fury visibly holds back laughter. "He's got your number," Fury says.

"Don't we have a secret base to infiltrate?" Phil asks, arching one eyebrow at Clint, and Fury _finally_ pulls open the access hatch.

Fury goes first, gun ready, with Phil glancing back at Clint before following. "You dork," Clint whispers fondly into Phil's ear at the last second, and an amused noise escapes Phil. It makes something warm ignite in Clint's chest, and he has to smile, but he doesn't have time to dwell on the feeling before they both descend into the hatch.

*

Clint blinks and blinks again, eyes straining against the darkness, but it's little to no use. He can make out the vague shapes of Phil and Fury, but that's about it, and he's willing to bet that if he can't see much, it's likely the other two can barely see a thing.

As if reading his mind, Fury fumbles for a moment, and then something nudges Clint's arm. "Goggles," Fury says shortly, and Clint manages to get them on and activated. As soon as things clear up, he realizes that they aren't normal night-vision goggles, but some crazy high-tech ones.

"Are these--are these SHIELD issue?" he asks, frowning.

In front of him, the corner of Phil's mouth twitches a little.

"Right," Clint says. "May."

They continue down the darkened corridor, weapons at the ready, but everything is still and quiet around them. "Seems abandoned," Phil remarks.

"What is this place?" Clint asks, mostly to himself.

"I don't know," Fury says. "And that annoys me."

"He doesn't like _not knowing_ things," Phil whispers back to Clint.

The corridor eventually leads to what might've been office space once upon a time, a few dusty desks scattered around and a long row of empty bookshelves built into one wall. The opposite wall is flaking with paint, but it's still possible to make out what's left of a semi-circular logo. Clint's sharp eyes carefully scan the rest of the room, before turning back to the logo on the wall.

"Is this SHIELD?" Clint asks, frowning.

Phil comes to stand next to him, adjusting his goggles on his face. "SSR, it looks like. This is getting real old school."

"Seems like there's a lot of that going around," Clint mumbles, thinking about hidden flash drives in shoes and fake cyanide teeth.

"I wonder why we didn't know about this place," Phil wonders. "We've spent a lot of time tracking down hidden bunkers for suitable hideouts. This never came up."

"I think someone else might've been using it," Fury says behind them, and both Clint and Phil spin around, startled, as a rumbling sound fills the room. Over by the bookshelves, Fury stands next to a newly revealed hidden door. "I found something," Fury deadpans.

The door leads to another door, which leads to a winding staircase. Clint tries to ignore the uneasy feeling growing in his gut as they descend further into the darkness. He reminds himself that everything he's gone through lately has been for this. The coordinates on the drive led them here. This place will hopefully solve whatever mystery Clint fell head first into, and either expose Sitwell as Hydra, or clear his name.

That thought drives Clint on, and he grips his bow tighter.

At the bottom of the staircase, all three men stop, looking around. The room is huge. Even the goggles have issues seeing the whole area. There are shapes in the darkness, square and silent, and Clint raises his bow, prepared to go further to investigate.

"Huh," Fury says from next to him, stopping him in his tracks. "That's curious."

Fury's looking at the wall next to them. There's a round sort of button there, with a light glowing very faintly in the middle.

Clint frowns, understanding. "There's still power down here?"

"Don't," Phil warns.

Fury, who already has a hand raised the push the button, tilts his head in a way that suggests he's giving Phil a scathing look behind his goggles.

"Last time you pushed a button," Phil reminds Fury, "we both ended up in the hospital in Copenhagen."

"No pain, no gain," Fury says, which--yeah, Clint can see that being sort of a life motto for the guy--and then, before either Phil or Clint can react, Fury pushes the button.

For a split, terrifying second, Clint's pulse skyrockets and he expects an explosion, a trap-- _something_. But the only thing that happens is a faint hum becoming audible, like a power generator starting up, and then the lights come on.

It's blinding for a moment before the goggles adjust, and Clint pulls them off, looking around the huge room they're standing in.

"What the fuck?"

The shapes he'd seen in the darkness are databanks. A _lot_ of databanks. There must be several miles worth of tapes here, Clint thinks, and feels more and more like he's stepped into the spy days of the past.

"Old school indeed," Phil murmurs.

Next to him, Fury whistles, low and impressed. "That's a lot of data," he says, walking to the nearest databank and resting his hand against the side of it.

"What do you think is on all of these?" Clint asks. Phil and Fury have both lowered their weapons and are looking at the various computers and pieces of machinery, but Clint's slowly making his way towards the center of the room, bow still at the ready, eyes scanning every nook and cranny for hidden dangers.

"Hydra secrets?" Phil guesses. "Hey. Check this out."

Finding nothing but dust bunnies and more databanks (and more, and more), he circles back around to where Phil and Fury are now standing by a control panel. A lot of it looks as ancient as the databanks around them, but it has obviously newer parts as well, a high-tech looking keyboard, shiny drive slots for various types of drives, and an abnormally large, brand-new looking webcam that's pointed straight at the three of them.

Clint scowls at it. He doesn't like strange, scary, high-tech looking cameras pointed at him.

"This is probably what all those programmers were working on, huh?" Clint comments, and Fury nods.

"The whole system seems to be shut down right now. Moving this is gonna be a huge pain in the ass," Phil says, one hand scratching the back of his neck. "But I also don't want to boot this up here. Who the hell knows what this place is rigged with?"

"We might not have time to move this," Fury says, already leaning forward to look at the control panel and all the buttons and switches. "If Sitwell is Hydra, he's high up. He's got knowledge. Trying to get rid of him doesn't bode well. And if he's not Hydra, well. They know _someone_ is sniffing around. Either way, they're looking to burn bridges and cover their tracks. Fast."

A chill runs down Clint's spine for no apparent reason, and he glares at the camera again. It's weirding him out. Who the hell needs a webcam that big? Or maybe it's a security camera? Is it on? Eyes narrowing, he takes a step closer to it.

"Think we could get Skye to take a look at all this?" Phil asks.

In his peripheral vision, Clint sees Fury shrug a little. "I think we'd have a hard time keeping her away. The question is, do we have time to wait that long? But I'm not sure what other options we have."

Clint thinks about the Black Widow and briefly considers offering her services, but he doubts she'll be happy with him if he does so without consulting with her first. He remains silent.

There's a dust cover hanging over a screen to Clint's left. Grabbing it, he flings it over the camera, not caring in the slightest that it makes him look ridiculous. When he turns back, both Phil and Fury are staring at him.

"What?" he asks, shrugging. "It was creeping me out. If it's a webcam, it's freaky. If it's a security camera, someone already knows we're here, so what's the issue?"

"Please do not do that, Agent Barton."

Clint jumps about a mile at the heavily accented voice echoing through the room, but it's at least a comfort that he's not the only one. Both Phil and Fury have their guns raised again, looking around for the source of the voice.

"Don't do what," Clint asks, bowstring drawn taut as he searches for a target. "Don't put an arrow through your eye socket?"

"I do not believe that shall be an issue," the voice says. Whoever this man is, he sounds smug, and Clint grits his teeth in annoyance.

"Yeah? We'll see."

The screen flickering to life to Clint's right and a little bit ahead of him causes him to twitch violently, and Phil and Fury spin around to look as well. A pixelated face in green stares creepily out at them, round glasses making the eyes little more than pitch black holes.

"You're welcome to try," the creepy face says, smug and obnoxious, and Clint resists the urge to wrinkle his nose at it.

"I know you," Phil says, hiding his obvious surprise behind a scowl.

They all jump a little again as another webcam rises up from behind a monitor, and then pivots to focus on each of them in turn.

"Ah," the face on the screen says, sounding pleased. "Finally a good look at my guests. Nick Fury and Phil Coulson, elusive former Army Rangers, wanted by Hydra. And with Agent Barton of SHIELD? To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Can it," Phil says, then addresses Fury and Clint without taking his eyes off the computer screen. "I think this is Arnim Zola. He was a scientist working with the Red Skull during the war. Later captured by Captain America. Even later, recruited by SHIELD. Died of cancer sometime in the seventies."

"Correction," Zola says. "I did not die. As is evident. A body is merely a vessel for the mind. And while science could not save the former, we were able to preserve the latter. I am immortal, Phil Coulson."

"You're a computer," Fury says. "Computers can be unplugged."

Clint feels like his head is spinning. This is a lot of information to take in. A few days ago, his greatest concern was getting fired for sleeping with Phil, and now there is apparently a secret terrorist organization hidden in the agency he's made his home, and oh, yeah--sentient computers. What is his life?

"Oh, but can they?" Zola asks, sounding very smug.

"Sure they can," Fury says, shrugging. "Watch me."

"Have you ever tried getting rid of a computer virus?" Zola asks. "Even if you erase it from one unit, it will come back. It will continue to exist. Once created, it will do exactly as it was designed. It will eat its way into as many units as it can, and you will never be able to stop it. Never be able to eradicate it."

Clint glances at Fury, whose expression is going darker and darker.

"I," Zola says, with great emphasis, "am forever."

For a long, tense moment, no further words are spoken. Clint looks at Fury, who looks at Phil, and Clint wonders if Fury might actually shoot Zola right in his computerized face--when Fury finally looks back at Zola.

"All right," Fury says. "Computers are built with a purpose in mind. What is your purpose within Hydra?"

"Unfortunately, I do not believe you are cleared for access to that information," Zola says. "And as much as you might want it, _I_ was not built to monologue away all our plans beforehand."

"Really," Fury says blandly. "That's a shame."

"Nick," Phil says quietly, and Clint turns his head. Phil's staring directly at a box on the floor, sitting quietly and unassuming underneath the control panel. There are multiple wires running to and from it, and in an instant, Clint understands.

"Go," Fury says, and Phil reacts in an instant, faster than Clint's ever seen him move. The second his hands close around the box--hard drive?--Zola's face twists in fury on the screen.

"No!" he screams, voice echoing through the room, but it's too late. Phil's fingers have already freed the little box from all its wires. Clint would admire Phil's speed and finger dexterity further, but he's busy scouting the area for traps or anything that might come flying out at them now that Zola's clearly pissed off.

Nothing happens. Nothing jumps out at them, there are no ominous warning signs, no beeping, no hidden traps revealing themselves.

Fury goes from looking tense to looking distinctly unimpressed. "Really," he says. "They didn't even install you with a decent self-defense system?"

"I don't need one," Zola hisses. "I am forever!"

"We'll see about that," Fury says, then turns his eye on Clint, head jerking sideways. There's no mistaking the hard glint in Fury's eye, and Clint knows what Fury wants without the man saying another word.

"Are you sure about this?" he asks, because he has to, even though he has issues containing his glee. It's been too long since he's fired his bow for real.

"Nick," Phil says quietly, leaning in, as if Zola won't hear him. "Don't you think we should try to preserve as much as possible?"

Fury looks from Phil to Clint, and finally back at Zola. His pixelated face is very carefully expressionless, and Clint gets creeped out all over again.

"Nah," Fury says slowly. "I have a theory, see. I think Zola here got an upgrade. I think all these databanks? Are outdated. And I think we'll find pretty much all we need right here." He gestures at the hard drive Phil's still holding onto.

In an instant, Zola's face changes, twisting with rage and desperation. "You will regret this," Zola says. "You do not leave this place without punishment. You do not leave with _part of me_!"

Turning to Clint again, Fury nods, satisfied. "Barton."

Clint smiles. He takes a moment just to breathe, picking out the perfect place to start before selecting the right arrow from his quiver.

"Anytime, Barton," Fury says impatiently.

"This is far from over! Hydra will have its revenge!" Zola screams.

"Yeah, yeah," Clint says, and fires.

The explosion at the far end of the room is loud enough that it echoes off the walls, and pieces of debris go flying. When Zola's outraged screaming becomes audible again, Clint simply fires another arrow, drowning out the shrill voice once more.

"Cheese, if you'd be so kind as to scout the exit," Fury says to Phil, who nods tightly and hands the drive off to Fury before heading towards the stairwell. Clint and Fury follow at a slower pace, Clint firing arrows all the way. It's a bit of a shame, wasting so many arrows to the explosions, but it's also highly satisfying to see Zola's face on the computer screen flicker and distort between his outraged screams.

By the time Clint and Fury join Phil by the stairwell, most of the room is on fire, and Clint figures he's nearly done wasting explosive arrows.

Zola's face is barely visible on the lone, flickering screen in the middle of the room. "I am invincible!" he screams, voice robotic and distorted over the speakers. "I am forever! Cut off one head, two more shall take its place! I am the embodiment of intelligence! I am the mind of Hydra, I am unstoppable!"

"You're impossible to shut up," Fury huffs, and despite it all, Clint and Phil both laugh.

"Did you have fun?" Phil asks Clint, nudging his arm a little in concern, and Clint can hear everything Phil isn't saying.

"A little," Clint admits. His arm _is_ feeling it, the dull throbbing moving from an ache and into pain, but it was still totally worth it.

"I'm glad you're okay," Phil says, a slight smile on his face. For a moment, amidst sparks of data banks melting and electronics short-circuiting, Clint gets lost in Phil's eyes, in the concern he sees there, and he reels a little with the surrealism of his life. How everything he's been through somehow led him straight to Phil, in the craziest of situations.

Then, Clint remembers Natasha and how she ran. He hopes she's okay. Clint thinks about the mess they're in, how deep this Hydra conspiracy might go, and he thinks about Sitwell, pale and unmoving in a hospital bed.

Clint looks back at the burning room behind them, and turns back to Phil.

"Phil, I--"

"Ahem," Fury says brusquely. "International shadow organization infiltrating one of our top intelligence agencies? Ring any bells?"

His words are enough to jerk both Clint and Phil back to reality, and even Phil looks a little awkward as he takes a step away from Clint and raises his gun again. "Right. Lead the way?"

Fury rolls his eye at them both before striding past them and up the stairs. Phil glances quickly at Clint with a slight smile and follows.

In the middle of the room, Zola's voice sputters, broken and staticy, "Cut off one head, two more shall take its place! Cut off one head, two more shall take its--"

Zola's words die in a jumbled mess of beeping and scratchy sounds as the speakers finally give out. Clint sighs and shakes his head, firing one last arrow into the heart of the room and hitting the control panels dead on.

Clint's already halfway up the stairs, jogging to catch up with Phil and Fury, by the time the last explosion dies down and there's nothing but the faint sound of flames licking across the room. Clint has to slip his goggles back on near the top of the stairs, but all three men leave the underground bunker a lot faster than they entered it. They don't speak again until they're walking briskly through the woods, headed back to the car.

"Do you think he's networked with other computers?" Phil asks Fury, in a tone that suggests he already knows the answer.

"Probably," Fury says, face set in a scowl. "Probably only a matter of time before Hydra catches up to us. And we better hope we can pry some useful information out of this fuckin' thing before they do." He gestures to the hard drive tucked in the nook of his elbow, before walking faster. "Come on."

*

They're about an hour away from New Jersey when there's a soft chirping noise from somewhere in the front seat. Clint blinks open an eye, shaking himself out of his nap in the back seat, and sits up in time to see Phil pull a small device from the glove compartment. "What's up?" Fury asks from the driver's seat.

The screen is glowing faintly green and blue in the darkness, and Clint leans forward between the seats to read over Phil's shoulder.

**> Before you freak out: I am okay, I got out, and nobody saw me.**

"What the hell," Phil mumbles, and the device--a phone?--chirps again.

The picture that appears on the screen is tiny, and it takes Clint a moment to recognize what it is, but when he does, his eyes widen. Flames lick towards the sky from the rubble of what used to be the house that covered the old SSR bunker.

Phil taps an icon and a keyboard appears on the screen.

**> > Are you okay?**

The answer appears almost instantly.

**> Did you not just see my message?**

"They got our place," Phil says to Fury, voice tight. "Skye got out, but we probably lost a lot of intel."

Another chime.

**> Btw I grabbed some of your party favors on the way out. Got what I could. You're welcome.**

"Or," Phil amends, turning so Clint can see his lips quirk up in a smile, "she seems to have been able to get some of our stuff out."

A rumble goes through the car, and after a second Clint realizes that it's Fury chuckling. "She's not a bad one, that girl," he says, sounding amused.

"She does okay," Phil admits, then types back to her:

**> > Good job. Now go dark.**

**> I asked for less mortal peril, not more**   
**> But fine, since you ask so nicely.**

Apparently satisfied with that answer, Phil nods once, rolls down the window, and throws the device into the darkness. Clint turns in his seat, and when he turns back, Fury is looking at him in the rearview mirror.

"In case they were tracing the conversation," Fury explains, which makes sense. He looks at Phil again. "She good?"

"She'll be fine," Phil says. He doesn't sound entirely sure of it though, and tense silence settles in the car. Not sure what to do or how he can help, Clint goes with his gut instinct, and his gut instinct is to touch Phil.

Without thinking too hard about it, Clint reaches forward and puts one hand on each of Phil's shoulders. When he starts massaging the tension out of Phil's muscles, Phil's head falls forward and he groans lightly.

"Hey," Fury says indignantly.

"Want me to do you next?" Clint asks with a wink, because he can't help it, and that breaks the tension immediately, as both Fury and Phil laugh.

"We need to figure out our next move," Phil says with a sigh, even as he slumps down a little further in his seat, relaxing into Clint's touch. "We can't go to Skye with this. Not when Hydra are so close."

"Oh, right, yeah. I forgot about all the _other_ computer hackers we have on standby," Fury says sarcastically.

Clint considers for a long while and stares out the window, even as he continues massaging Phil's shoulders. The darkness flies by outside, blurry shapes of trees and landscape that he can't make out. Hill will probably--definitely--still be in the office, because she's the biggest workaholic Clint knows.

"We could--we could go to SHIELD," Clint says, which causes Fury to twitch comically in his seat, and Phil to sit up straight again.

"I know you're not being serious, but that shit ain't funny," Fury says.

"Maria Hill," Clint says quickly, finally abandoning Phil's shoulders in order to scoot into the middle seat and lean forward again. "Maria Hill recruited me. She's the Director of SHIELD. I trust her, I trust her with my life. We can take it to her."

"Yeah well, _I_ don't trust her," Fury snaps.

Clint frowns. "But--you trusted me because Phil trusts me. And I trust her."

Fury makes a huffing sound. "Don't get cute with me." After a beat, he says, "We should try to get in touch with May."

"She's been transferred to SHIELD custody at the Cube," Clint says, not even pausing to consider that this might be classified information. 

Fury and Phil seem to consider this. "And Jasper Sitwell?" Phil asks.

"Him too, from what I understand," Clint says.

Phil and Fury seem to be having some sort of conversation without words in the front seat, so Clint carefully shifts back to give them as much privacy as possible. Fury keeps glancing back and forth between the road and Phil, head swiveling, and Phil's looking steadily at Fury, occasionally nodding or gesturing a little.

"No," Fury says, finality in his voice.

"Madripoor," Phil says, calmly, coolly, and damn, Clint's missed this side of Phil. This was the side of Phil he first saw, and for a split second, Clint wishes he could go back to that first night, before all this spy shit and Hydra and his friends getting hurt. Back when he was just having some really hot sex with a really hot guy in a three-piece suit.

Phil's not wearing a suit, now. He's wearing the same black cargo pants and heavy jacket Fury is. Clint misses the suits.

"You're a manipulative little fucker, you know that?" Fury grumbles at Phil, who chuckles.

"You may have mentioned it on occasion."

"All right," Fury says, louder, catching Clint's eye in the rearview mirror again. "Here's what we're gonna do. You're gonna go find Maria Hill. Take Phil as backup. I'm gonna go find May and see what she knows."

"So we're going to SHIELD?" Clint asks, vaguely surprised, but pleased.

"We're going wherever Maria Hill is," Fury says, "then _I'm_ going to SHIELD. At least that's where you said they kept May, right?"

Clint smiles, relieved. "We're going to SHIELD," he confirms. "Maria Hill is almost always in her office. She'll be there for sure."

Fury looks like he kind of wants to protest given the late hour, but in the end he doesn't say anything. In the passenger seat, Phil twists a little so he can smile at Clint, reaching back to take Clint's hand in his.

"Oh, we have to make a quick stop," Phil says.

"Now you're just showing off," Fury accuses. Phil doesn't respond.

*

Twenty minutes later, Clint watches as Phil buttons up his suit jacket, before he throws the bag with his black cargo pants and jacket into the trunk, and closes it.

"All right," Phil says. "I'm ready."

It's hard to see in the darkness, but Clint thinks the suit might be gray again. He might also be salivating a little bit. Meeting Clint's eyes, Phil smiles, cheeks dimpling faintly, and Clint's insides does a weird flip-flop.

"You know," Clint says, "if we're about to get killed by an international terrorist shadow organization, at least the two of us had some fun."

Phil's smile widens.

"You guys disgust me," Fury mutters, and gets back in the car.

Clint doesn't care.

*

The Cube is reasonably quiet this late, but there's still a few people around. Clint walks in and keeps his head down, hoping nobody has reported him missing yet. The lights have been dimmed a little, but Clint can still see that Phil's suit is indeed gray, though it has faint pinstripes Clint couldn't identify in the darkness outside. That, along with his confident walk, makes him fit in about a thousand times better than Clint, who's still in dirty jeans and his jacket, and mostly feeling like a walking bruise at this point. Part of Clint thinks it's ridiculous, how seamlessly Phil blends in here, since Clint's actually the one working here--but part of him can't feel anything but attracted to the easy confidence in Phil's step.

When he almost trips over his own feet watching Phil a little too hard, Phil smirks, but doesn't look at Clint. "Focus," he reminds Clint gently.

"Yeah, yeah," Clint sighs as they enter the elevator.

That red-faced Level One kid at Hill's reception desk is gone for the night, but Clint knows she's in there anyway. He shifts the bag on his shoulder, trying hard not to think about the cargo he's carrying, and knocks.

For a few moments, nothing happens, and Clint's starting to wonder if maybe he got it wrong, maybe Hill's actually not here for once--but then the door opens, and Hill stares at him. For the briefest of moments, her face is set in a scowl of annoyance, clearly not happy with being disturbed this late, but her eyes slide over to Phil, and when she looks at Clint again, her expression has settled into a mild frown.

"Agent Barton," she says, tone not revealing anything. "Can I help you?"

"Remember what you said about being kept in the dark?" Clint asks. Hill doesn't react beyond a nod, but Clint still thinks she looks--more tense, somehow. Clint's heartbeat picks up in his chest. "Well, I really need to talk to you. _We_ need to talk to you."

Hill doesn't hesitate any further, stepping aside to let them both into her office.

*

Clint eyes the treacherous chair in front of Hill's desk for a split second, electing to remain standing.

"What's going on, Barton?" Hill asks, closing the door behind them, and nodding at Phil. "Who's this guy?"

"I'm Phil," Phil says easily, reaching out a hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Oh," Hill says, giving Barton a look along the lines of _What the fuck, Barton?_ as she shakes Phil's hand. "You're _Phil_ , well, that explains everything," she says sarcastically, before suddenly freezing. "Wait a second--Phil, you said?"

Hill's face goes dark as she obviously realizes who Phil is, and her expression twists in a furious way that makes Clint want to curl into a ball.

"Agent Barton," she bites out. "Explanation. Now."

"Okay," Clint says, taking a deep breath, not sure where to start. "Okay, so. Okay."

Hill actually starts tapping her foot impatiently, and Clint swallows. "So, we're pretty sure SHIELD has been infiltrated by Hydra," he blurts out.

Hill's foot stops tapping.

"Hydra," she says flatly. "World War II era Nazi organization, Hydra."

Clint manages a sheepish grin. "I know it sounds dumb--"

"It sounds more than dumb," Hill interrupts him, before sighing heavily and running a hand across her hair, ending up rubbing her neck. "But I'll hear you out." She sighs again, cheeks puffing out in an unusually expressive way, and sits down behind her desk.

There's a thick stack of paperwork in front of her, and a holographic projection that looks like more paperwork hovering above the desk surface, but Hill closes it, pushes the papers aside, and leans back in her chair. "You better start from the beginning, Barton."

"Okay," Clint says meekly, clutching the bag and glancing at Phil quickly for reassurance. Phil nods once at him, smiling encouragingly, and Clint takes another deep breath. "Okay, so, first of all, let me just say, I know I fucked up and I'm sorry. So. The mission I was on in Minnesota..."

*

It takes a while to explain everything. Hill's face varies between anger and disbelief as Clint's story goes on and on. It's tempting to leave out a few details here and there, especially about Phil's appearances in Clint's apartment, but Clint's feeling worn down and tired, and it's time to bring everything to the table. Almost everything. He keeps the details about Black Widow to himself, and he's very careful about making sure Hill knows they only _suspect_ Sitwell of being Hydra, but besides that, he includes everything he can remember, up to and including finding Zola in the hidden bunker in Virginia.

Phil remains mostly silent through Clint's tale, only jumping in with a few comments here and there. Neither of them mention Fury by name.

When Clint finishes talking, his throat feels dry, and Hill's expression has gone carefully blank. She doesn't speak for a long time, long enough that Clint exchanges another look with Phil, wondering what's next, but then Hill shifts forward, resting her elbows heavily on her desk.

Hill sighs. "Well."

Clint shrugs and attempts a grin, though he doesn't think he's entirely successful.

"Now what?" she asks.

Phil clears his throat carefully from next to Clint. "We need to extract any possible information from the drive we took from Zola. We're not quite sure how much we got, but judging from his--less than pleasant reaction, it does contain useful information. We're pretty tapped out on resources at the moment."

"So you came to me," Hill says.

Phil nods, meeting her eyes steadily and without fear. Clint gets a little weak in the knees in admiration.

"You have an entire organization at your disposal. We trust you understand the need for secrecy and discretion. Especially since you undoubtedly have Hydra agents working undercover in your organization right this very second."

Hill bristles for a second at that, as if her instinct is to deny the very possibility that SHIELD could have fallen victim to an infiltration of this magnitude--but then she visibly deflates with a nod.

"Yeah. I can help. I _will_ help."

"Really?" Clint blurts out before he can help himself. He hadn't expected her to accept his story so fast.

Hill regards him for a long moment, eyes almost sad. "Agent Barton, I recruited you for a reason," is all she says. Clint remembers the echo of those exact words from only a few days prior, and he swallows. Suddenly he bitterly regrets not trusting her sooner.

With a pointed glare at Phil, she adds, "As evidenced by not throwing your ass in a jail cell for sleeping with the enemy."

Phil's lips twitch a little bit, like he wants to be embarrassed, but that's his only reaction. Clint, on the other hand, feels his face go beet red. At least it makes Hill smirk as she stands up.

"Do you have the drive?"

Exchanging another glance with Phil and receiving a miniscule nod, Clint digs the drive out of the bag and hands it over to Hill. There's a tense, split second where he almost expects Hill to laugh maniacally, like a villain in a movie, and plant a bullet between his eyes, but it never comes. Hill simply takes the drive, examines the ports, and digs out some wires from one of her desk drawers.

"Secure office," she says into the room, and there's a faint whirring sound as the door locks and screens come down over her window.

"Secure office engaged," a faintly electronic voice says.

Phil looks suitably impressed, and Clint can't help the fond _Dork,_ that comes to mind as he looks back to Hill standing by the wall to Phil and Clint's left, hooking the drive up to her system. The wall comes to life, and a large screen demanding a password appears.

"Authorized user, Hill, Maria. Run decryption."

A small circle-symbol that appears to be buffering appears on screen for a second, before the edges flashes red.

"Decryption failed," the voice says.

Hill frowns. "Override protocol Delta Kappa, authorization code one three eight. Run decryption, alpha mode."

The buffering sign appears again, and this time, things start popping up on the screen.

Phil's eyebrows fly upwards, and he says faintly, "Skye would have a field day with this system."

Hill looks curiously at Phil, but doesn't ask who Skye is. Her attention is directed back to the screen when the screen's edges suddenly flash red again, and the automated voice says, "Security alert. Unknown script. Security alert. Unknown script."

Hill gives Phil and Clint a quick look. "Someone definitely knows we're accessing this thing," she explains quickly before turning back to the screen. "Copy as much information as possible."

The voice crackles a little, but it still says, "Copy in progress," and a progress bar appears on the screen. It doesn't seem to be moving for a long time, but finally it tips from 0% to 1%, and Clint's eyebrows go up.

"There's no way we're gonna be able to get this whole thing," Hill sighs.

"Someone will come for us," Phil says, looking around Hill's office, calculating, evaluating. "We need to have an escape plan."

Clint starts asking, "What about--?" but still stops before saying Fury's name.

"He can take care of himself," Phil says, going to the window and checking the screen that's covering it.

"We probably have a little bit of time," Hill says, frowning. "We should at least--"

Something happens.

For a moment, Clint can't comprehend it. As if in slow motion, Hill's eyes squeeze shut and her entire body _tilts_ , and one of Phil's arms flails into Clint's line of sight. Clint's weightless, helpless, falling, debris filling his vision. Then, things catch up with him, and Clint hits the wall with a grunt, ears ringing from the explosion that has torn down the entire wall of Hill's office.

"Clint," Phil groans from somewhere to Clint's left.

"I'm okay," Clint groans back, even though he doesn't actually know if that's true. There's smoke and dust everywhere.

Through the smoke and rubble, a man clad in the STRIKE team's uniform appears, and Clint manages to react in time to roll to the side and dodge the bullets that start flying.

"Barton!" Hill calls from somewhere near her desk, and Clint skids across the floor and slides in behind the desk--and wouldn't you know it, it seems Maria Hill's desk is bulletproof. Huddled next to Hill, Clint has more than enough cover and time to get his own sidearm out. The hail of bullets is still coming, but they've stopped pinging off the desk.

"Phil?" Clint calls, but there's no response. Clint pushes down the nausea that rolls through him at that; he can't think about it, can't let it distract him.

"The drive!" Hill hisses, peeking around the desk to fire a few times, and immediately ducking back down. "Ugh," Hill says, an annoyed look on her face, before she calls loudly, "Agent Graham!"

"The work of Hydra will not be stopped!" the man who must be Agent Graham calls back, but there's a loud grunt and the spray of bullets stops.

Clint and Hill move as one out from behind the desk, to find Phil wrestling Agent Graham for his gun. Phil's suit is dirty and there's dust on his face, but he looks otherwise unharmed.

"Phil!" Clint cries. Phil's got his arms wrapped around Graham from behind, both hands on his firearm, as Graham struggles to get free.

"Don't fucking move!" Clint shouts, gun aimed steadily at Graham's head.

There's a sound from the hole where Hill's door used to be, and several things happen at once: Phil lets go of Graham just in time to dodge a heavy nightstick that comes flying at him, Graham dives forward and spins around, gun coming up to fire, and something--someone--slams into Clint from the side, causing him to lose his gun. The two recent STRIKE team arrivals instantly engage Phil and Clint in battle, while Graham leaps for the drive. As he gets to his feet again, out of the corner of his eye, Clint sees Hill beat Graham to the drive, meeting him halfway by kicking the gun out of his hands.

Clint forces himself to focus on the guy right in front of him and concentrate on his own fight.

They stare each other down for a few seconds. Clint's never met the New York STRIKE team. He knows _of_ the STRIKE teams, of course. Highly trained soldiers, all of them. Clint could take every one of them on the shooting range, that much he knows, but he's not so sure about hand to hand combat.

Gritting his teeth, Clint balls his hands into fists, so tightly that his knuckles crack. He can't think about that. He doesn't have any choice; he has to win.

Next to them, Phil tumbles past, exchanging blows with his own opponent.

"We gonna go, or what?" the guy snarls.

Clint narrows his eyes, and they're off.

The guy's a good fighter, and Hill's office is crowded. Clint gets in a few good blows here and there, but he mostly feels like he's being pummeled. He manages to duck a punch that tears plaster off the edge of the wall, already crumbling where the explosion ripped it apart, but when the guy grips his collar and hauls him across to Hill's desk, Clint can't find his footing fast enough to avoid painfully hitting the corner of the desk. A shot goes off from where Maria and Graham are grappling for control of her gun, and the bullet kicks up debris only a foot away from where Phil's got his guy pinned to the floor.

Clint takes a punch to the nose, aims a kick at the guy's crotch only to hit his thigh instead, and he feels so very tired. He was already aching enough before the explosion, but everything he's put himself through is starting to catch up with him. The gunshot wound in his arm has moved back from an ache to outright pain, and he knows it's affecting his fighting. He can't put his full strength behind his punches. He can't react quite as fast as he needs to in order to get the upper hand.

More punches come at him with terrifying speed, and Clint works hard on blocking them. He's being forced up against the wall, and he wonders how long this will go on. Is the whole STRIKE team Hydra? When will reinforcements arrive? And whose side will those reinforcements be on?

"Clint," Phil gasps, sounding desperate and worried, but Clint can't afford to take his eyes off the man who's still coming at him with terrifying levels of energy.

A strong hand shoots out and grabs Clint by the throat, and the man grins, nasty and gloating. Clint's eyes water.

"Three on three," the guy says, sounding smug. "I'd have thought you'd have held up better, Agent Barton."

Another shot rings out, except this time, someone is hit. Clint can breathe freely as the guy suddenly goes down in a heap, eyes unblinking and unseeing. A dark form leaps across the room, landing on top of Graham, and then there's some impressive sort of spinning martial arts moves happening. When Graham stops moving, he's pinned under the boot of a very pissed off looking Melinda May, her gun pressed to his temple.

"How about six on two?" a familiar voice says from the doorway.

It's enough to make Phil and the guy he's grappling with stop, and all eyes turn to where Nick Fury's standing, aiming a really big gun into the room. Leaning heavily on him and looking like absolute hell, is Jasper Sitwell.

"What the," Clint mumbles. Maria Hill is breathing hard and looking about ready to snap again.

"Took you long enough," Phil says casually.

"You," May hisses at Graham, and Clint remembers why he's never dared to introduce himself properly to her.

"He," Sitwell breathes, voice like sandpaper. "He shot us. Both of us."

"I never saw," May hisses, "but Sitwell did."

"Should you be out of bed?" Clint asks dazedly, brain trying hard to shut down on him. He's so _tired_. Then, he looks at May. "Should _you_ be out of bed?" May's got a black sweater and sweat pants on, but the edges of her bandages are easy to see where they peek out by her neckline. Seeing the way she's practically snarling at Graham, however, makes Clint reconsider, and he shrugs. "Never mind. Guess you're fine for this."

"The drive?" Phil inquires.

Hill mournfully picks up the shattered remains of the drive, mouth turning down. The big screen on the wall had shut down during the explosion, and she sighs. "I don't know what we got from it, if anything."

Graham laughs, dry and cackling from the floor. He looks manic. Clint's never personally met the guy, but he still feels betrayed. It's one thing knowing SHIELD had enemies buried in its ranks, it's another thing to come face to face with one of them. Graham is--was--the leader of the east coast STRIKE team. That's not an insignificant position in SHIELD.

"Don't think for a second this is any sort of victory for you," Hill threatens.

Graham cackles again. "Cut off one head--"

"Not this again," Clint groans.

"--and two more shall take its place!"

Graham's jaw moves, and Clint _knows_ that movement, he knows what Graham's doing, and he leaps forward, lunges, stretches, and across the room, Phil does the same--

They can't stop it, in the end. The cyanide capsule, wherever Graham hid it, instantly takes effect, and within seconds he's nothing more than a faintly gurgling corpse on the messy floor of Maria Hill's New York office.

"Shit," Hill groans.

"There's always this joker," Fury shrugs, massive gun still aimed at the guy Phil had been fighting.

He looks considerably less ready to die for the cause than Agent Graham had been, but when everyone's attention turns to him, he still sets his jaw stubbornly and glares.

"Agent Pryce," Hill says, stepping forward.

"I'm not talking," Agent Pryce immediately says.

"You're not dying from cyanide either," Fury comments casually, shifting the gun a little. "I'm guessing you can be persuaded to share."

"I'm sorry, are you asking the questions now?" Hill says, turning to glare at Fury. "I don't know who the fuck you are, but this is still my agency--"

There's a mad scramble as Agent Pryce suddenly throws himself to the side. Phil lunges forward, Fury's gun comes up, Pryce lands sideways, rolls, comes up again, and Hill ducks to the left--

The shot hits Clint in the abdomen.

There's a buzzing in Clint's brain, everything he knows, or thinks he knows, about gunshot wounds to the gut. He's trying to remember how long it'll take him to bleed out. He's trying to figure out what the bullet can possibly have hit. There's a humming pain, increasing in intensity, and he blinks at the ceiling, wondering how he ended up on the floor.

"Clint," Phil says, his face swimming into Clint's vision, hands finding the wound in Clint's stomach and pressing. Clint groans in pain.

There's a scuffle somewhere Clint can't see, and more shots. Clint hopes nobody else gets hurt. Except maybe Pryce. He wouldn't mind if Pryce got a little hurt.

Maria Hill appears above Clint, looking down at him with concern.

"You ducked," Clint accuses, because it's the first thing that comes to mind, even though it feels like he has to force the words out. "That fucker was totally aiming for you."

"Agent Barton," Hill snaps, sounding angry at him, but Clint closes his eyes for a moment. Whatever. He's tired, and she _totally_ ducked.

"This is Agent Sitwell," Sitwell's voice drifts to Clint's ears. He sounds worse than Clint. Hoarse and breathy and _terrible_. "Victor beta--"

The rest of Sitwell's security code fades, and suddenly Clint's got cotton everywhere. His ears, his eyes, his mouth. Even in his wound. The pain is fading, but it's still uncomfortable where Phil's got both hands pressed against him. Clint opens his eyes again and tries to see. He can't tell, but he thinks Phil's got blood on his suit. It's a shame. Clint really loves those suits.

"But I don't _want_ this to end badly," Clint says, recalling Phil's words to him. It seems like so long ago now. At least Clint _thinks_ he says it. He might be whining it.

"You'll be fine," Phil says. He's trying to be calm, but Clint can tell he's really not.

"Liar," Clint accuses.

Phil shakes his head, presses harder on Clint's stomach. "I never lied to you, Clint. I'm not about to start now."

Clint doesn't have the energy to answer. Over the last couple of days he's been beat up, shot, beat up again, exploded, beat up some more, and he's just too tired to deal with it anymore.

"Whatever," he says, closing his eyes to go to sleep. "Wake me when I'm not dead, then."

The last thing he hears is Phil's voice, warm and solid. "You bet your ass we will."

*

Clint's really sick of getting knocked unconscious and waking up in strange locations.

The steady beeping of a monitor and the sterile smell both practically scream hospital, but when Clint finally dares to open his eyes, he's not greeted by the expected white walls or wide windows. Instead, the first thing he sees is tacky, yellowing wallpaper that looks like it might've been in fashion sometime in the early 60s.

Looking around, Clint blinks to clear his vision fully, and starts to wonder if maybe he hit his head harder than he thought. The whole bedroom is terrible. The wooden dresser in one corner is old and heavy, the mattress he's on is not the hard hospital mattress he was expecting, and he dimly thinks that this room, this--house? apartment? who the fuck knows--can't possibly belong to anyone below the age of ninety.

His head feels like it's full of water, and Clint definitely recognizes the signs of good painkillers. It's a relief, because if the hurt that spikes through his heavily bandaged torso when he tries to move is anything to go by, he _needs_ the good painkillers, and he needs a lot of them. At the same time, it's awful because it means he won't actually stop feeling off-kilter until he comes down. Clint hates feeling off-kilter. Blinking, Clint tentatively tries moving a finger, which sends a shooting pain up his entire arm and into his chest. Biting down on a groan, Clint tries the other hand, and gets a similar result.

He's breathing evenly through his nose and gathering the strength to sit up, when the door opens and Maria Hill strides in.

"Oh good," she says, sounding pleased. "You're awake."

"Phil?" Clint asks without thinking about it, taking a split second to feel a spike of amused pleasure when Hill's step falters ever so slightly.

"He's not here right now, but he'll be back soon," she explains, coming to stand next to his bedside. "It took a bit to stitch you back together, and I expect you'll need some physical therapy to get back in full form."

"The fuck happened?" Clint groans. His head is swimming. "May and--Sitwell showed up, right?"

Hill nods. "That's right. You'll be pleased to know, neither of them are affiliated with Hydra."

"We sure of that?" Clint mumbles, wanting so badly to believe it, but still reeling from the surrealism of the whole situation.

"Absolutely sure," Hill assures him. "In fact, Sitwell has some choice words for you when you're both up for it."

"I'm sure he does," Clint says, smiling a little at the thought of how pissed off Sitwell must be. "So what happened with them?"

"It would appear," Hill says, sighing heavily, "that Sitwell discovered that May was ferreting information to your buddies. Instead of coming to me, like he should have, he decided to confront May first, suspecting that he didn't have the whole story."

"Well, to be fair, he didn't," Clint says. Hill ignores him.

"Hydra must have intercepted their messages, and sent Graham to attack them both, using their own weapons against each other. Pure dumb luck that he didn't stay behind long enough to make sure he'd finished the job. Maybe he was interrupted by the people who called 911. We don't know. In any case, Agent Sitwell has made a positive ID of Graham--again--as the shooter."

"Bet May's real pleased," Clint says.

Hill considers. "Pleased isn't the word I'd use."

"Sarcasm, Director," Clint sighs. Talking is difficult and tiring. Maybe he should lay off the jokes and stick to the necessities. "Did we get anything from the drive?"

Hill's expression tightens. "Very little. Enough to know there are at least several more moles in SHIELD. I don't know how many. But this is bigger than I anticipated."

"Yeah," Clint mumbles, "I know the feeling."

Hill pauses for a moment, making sure Clint's looking at her again before she continues. "Being that we don't know how far Hydra's reach goes within SHIELD, I've decided that we need to approach this--alternatively. We need to find a way to take them all down, without alerting them to the fact that we're on their trail. For the moment, I've managed to make what happened at the Cube look like a separate incident, but I'm sure they're suspicious. I can't afford to show my hand yet." She pauses again. "Your heart stopped on the operating table," she says bluntly. "Only for a few seconds, but it still stopped."

Clint blinks. He's not sure he heard her right. "I died?"

Hill shrugs. "Technically."

A thought worms its way into Clint's brain, working to penetrate the drug-induced fog, and his jaw drops.

"You didn't."

For the first time since Clint's known her, Hill looks genuinely and sincerely apologetic.

"You _did_ ," he gasps.

"It's temporary," she assures him. "It won't be forever."

"I'm--" Clint gasps, suddenly feeling like he can't breathe all over again. "I'm--you had me--you had me--"

"--legally declared as deceased, yes," Hill says. She sounds sorry, but she says it fast. Like ripping off a bandaid. And just like that, Clint can breathe again. Having his suspicions confirmed does nothing to reassure him, but it stops the panic building in his throat. Sinking further back into the pillows, Clint feels sleep pulling hard at him.

"You had me legally declared as deceased," he repeats, groggy from the drugs and grumpy with the situation. It's hard to wrap his mind around.

Hill considers. "How about instead we say that I took advantage of a shitty situation and turned it around?"

"Turn it around up your ass, Director," Clint mumbles, eyes drifting shut for a moment.

"Careful, Agent Barton," Hill says. Clint can't see her with his eyes shut, but he could swear she sounds amused. "You still technically work for me. You should show me some respect."

That makes him crack his eyes open, one eyebrow arching. At least he hopes one eyebrow is arching. It's hard to tell through the drugs. "I think _dying_ officially relieves me of duty."

"You seem perfectly alive to me," Hill says innocently. From behind her back, she produces a thick folder, and Clint pretends he doesn't flinch in pain when it hits the bed next to him and accidentally jostles his side.

"New mission?" Clint asks, blinking slowly down at the folder. It hurts every part of his body to move, but he stubbornly gets a finger to a corner of the folder so he can flip it open. Inside is a transcript log marked with Graham's name.

**> > Jackal moving in on Rook, orders?**   
**> ETA?**   
**> > Minutes.**   
**> Eliminate all targets, freefalling.**   
**> > Escort?**   
**> Negative. I'm not on base. Proceed.**

"What's this?" Clint wonders.

"Pulled it from Graham's phone. No word on who he's communicating with, but timestamp sets the conversation directly before he attacked us."

"Someone within SHIELD was giving him orders," Clint says, and it's not really a question. Understanding dawns as he speaks the words, and he fights through the fog to meet Director Hill's eyes, steady and intense, and having so much faith in him that it rocks Clint to his core.

"I trust you to stay on this," she says, hands landing on her hips in a familiar pose of authority, but something in her eyes softens. "This is important. You know how important this is. I don't have to tell you."

"Deep shadow conditions?" Clint asks.

She holds his gaze steadily. Clint breathes evenly. "Deeper," she says. "This is off the books. You know what that means, right?"

Clint swallows. He knows very well what that means. "I'm a ghost."

She nods slowly, and although her face never changes, there's something almost regretful there now. "I'll arrange to have some of your stuff sent to you. Just essentials, I'm afraid. Everything else has to go."

Clint sighs and finally closes his eyes again. He can't look at her anymore. "It's fine. Not like that's the first time," he mumbles.

"Clint," Hill says quietly. She never uses his first name. "You won't be alone, you know that, right?"

For a brief moment, Clint remembers their first meeting again, he remembers her strength and his fear, and he takes the time to remind himself that--no. He's come so far. Even now, he's come so far, and she won't leave him out in the cold again, because she promised he'd always have SHIELD at his back. It seems even now, with SHIELD teetering on the edge of disaster and Hydra's tentacles reaching everywhere, she's intent on keeping that promise.

"Wasn't aware we still had trustworthy people, ma'am," he says smartly, and he just _knows_ she's suppressing a smile.

"Oh," she says, amused. "We have a couple, at least."

Clint considers this for a moment, before he smiles.

"So if I'm a ghost, I'll need a codename, right? I call Hawkeye."

*

Epilogue

The diner is still a little busy with the last remnants of the lunch rush, but Clint still goes straight to booth #4 and the two men sitting there. Cocking one hip out, Clint raises his order pad and grins cockily down at them. "What can I get you guys?" he says, overly cheery.

Jasper Sitwell looks up at Clint with the blandest expression Clint's ever seen on any human being, and says with a complete straight face, "Coffee, black, pancakes, no butter, and a newspaper if you've got one."

"Sure thing, coming right up," Clint says, scribbling down on his pad, _Dick dick dick penis boobs,_ before turning to Phil. "How 'bout you. Can I offer you anything? At all?"

"Less flirting," Phil says. Clint wonders if Sitwell and Phil sit around and practice their poker faces at each other when Clint's not around. "Pancakes for me as well. But I think I'll have the tea with lemon, thank you."

"You bet," Clint says, ignoring Phil's comment about flirting, and winking at them as he leaves their table. In the back, he gets their order from the cook and carefully sets it all down on a big tray. He finds a copy of the day's newspaper, discreetly peels off the microdrive with the intel he's got taped to his lower back, stuffs it in among the newspaper's folds, tucks the whole thing under his arm, picks up the tray, and makes his way back to their table.

"Here's your newspaper, sir," Clint says as he deposits the newspaper in front of Sitwell. Sitwell doesn't even glance at him as he picks up the newspaper, and Clint doesn't _see_ the microdrive disappear down the sleeve of his suit jacket, but they've made this exchange often enough by now that he knows how it works. Clint continues setting out the food while Phil and Sitwell discuss a fictional business agreement, before heading back to the kitchen. He wishes he could stay longer and listen in for any hidden messages Sitwell might be bringing them, but he's got a (fake) job to do.

By the time he gets back to their table with the check and starts clearing away their plates, the diner has quieted down considerably. Phil smiles gratefully at him, and Sitwell is looking at his watch and groaning. "I gotta run, I have a flight to catch."

"Going back to New York?" Phil asks, dabbing syrup from his lips. Clint's silently disappointed; he wanted to lick away that syrup himself, later.

"Nah, gotta be in California by tomorrow," Sitwell says, sighing. "New client, you know how it is." Lowering his voice a little, he adds, "Tony Stark just got back from Afghanistan."

The implications are clear. Clint has to bite the inside of his cheek not to react, as Phil smiles and places a pile of bills on top of the check. "Well, good luck with that," Phil says to Sitwell, before turning his smile on Clint. "Keep the change."

"Thanks, guys, enjoy your day," Clint says and picks up the tray, heading back to the kitchen. Once it's all been deposited by the sink, Clint turns to look for his boss, Joanna. "Hey, uh, I'm gonna take my lunch break," he calls out.

"That's fine," Jo calls back. Clint likes her; she's very young, but she's smart, hard working, and she never questions Clint's occasionally weird behavior. Or--he glances at his watch--his long lunch breaks.

Hanging his apron by the door, Clint walks out the back of Jo's Diner and jumps into his car. He feels reasonably sure that today's the day he'll finally beat Phil home.

They've been stationary outside of Norfolk, Nebraska, for nearly six months now--longer than anywhere else, and Clint has to admit, he's starting to feel attached. They both still take varied and crazy routes to get home to shake any potential followers, just in case, but Phil seems to be some sort of magic ninja, always beating Clint back to the little house they share. Of course, today is no exception, and by the time Clint pulls into their garage and shuts the door behind him, Phil's car is already there.

"You cheater," Clint accuses, walking into the kitchen, where Phil is looking contemplatively into the fridge.

"How do I cheat?" Phil asks, arching an eyebrow as he straightens. "I go through the safety procedures, same as you. I don't cheat."

"Said the cheater," Clint says, sticking his tongue out.

"Are you accusing me of lying?" Phil asks, smile turning mischievous.

Something in Clint softens, and he pulls Phil to him, spinning them so Phil's back is against the wall. "No," Clint says softly, enjoying the way Phil's smiling at him and the feeling of Phil's hands as they settle on Clint's hips. "I don't think you're lying."

Phil looks like he's having a moment.

"I think you're _cheating_ , which is an entirely different thing," Clint clarifies, ruining the moment and making Phil shut him up with a kiss.

"I was in a hurry," Phil says when they pull apart. "I can't stay long today; I have to go meet Nick."

"News?" Clint asks, briefly wondering if he needs to tell his already hardening dick that nothing's happening after all.

"Not urgent, I don't think," Phil says, then shrugs. "Well, not urgent by normal people's definition. With Nick though..."

He trails off, and Clint nods in understanding. "Still chasing that lead on a Zola backup facility?"

Phil nods. "Multiple, actually. So far, nothing concrete, but I agree with him: I find it hard to believe they could manage to preserve a human mind so well in machines and code, and not create any backups."

"All right," Clint says, glancing at his watch. "How much time have you got?"

"Thirty minutes," Phil says, and that makes Clint drop his arm and glare.

"Thirty minutes? That's _plenty_ of time for sex!"

Phil chuckles. "Not all of us go off like a--"

"Hey, I gotta come first sometimes," Clint interrupts, which makes Phil's chuckle turn into a full-blown laugh. "I'd be first to the house sometimes, if it wasn't for your cheating."

"Oh, shut up," Phil says, words completely free of any sting, as he captures Clint's lips in another kiss.

"Cheater," Clint mumbles again into Phil's mouth, "cheater, cheater, cheat--"

Phil pulls out of the kiss with an exasperated sigh. "Do you want to have sex on your break or not?"

"I can have sex _and_ call you a cheater," Clint says, swooping in for another kiss, brief this time. "I can multitask. Just like you somehow cheated your way back home while also being real good at spy stuff."

"Hm, home," Phil hums, happily, latching onto the word as if it gives him life, and then latching onto Clint's neck. Clint likes Phil's happy voice. It makes him warm and calm inside.

Hugging Phil tighter, Clint spins them again so that he's leaning against the kitchen counter before hopping up on it and wrapping his legs around Phil's waist. It forces Phil's lips away from his neck, but it's worth it to see the dopey look on Phil's face.

"Kitchen counter nooner?" Clint asks, leering at Phil.

In reply, Phil kisses Clint again, long and lingering, before he wordlessly makes enough room between them so Clint's hands can find their way to his waistcoat.

"I love your suits," Clint sighs happily.

"Why do you think I keep wearing them?" Phil asks smugly.

"Because you love me?" Clint guesses, fingers undoing buttons as he talks.

Phil's smile is blinding. "Because I love you."

Clint's whole face hurts. He doesn't think he's physically able to smile any wider. So instead, he kisses Phil and pulls him close, and loves him right back.

End.


End file.
